The Debt Collector

1999 "Some debts can never be paid."
6.5| 1h45m| en| More Info
Released: 25 June 1999 Released
Producted By: Dragon Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Mean, gritty, dirty and low, and that's just the policeman Gary Keltie, out for retribution for the horrendous crimes against the helpless people of Edinburgh during the 1970s, by notorious, torturous, and killer, debt collector Nickie Dryden.

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Reviews

GazerRise Fantastic!
CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
David Holt (rawiri42) Deciding whose side you're on whilst watching The Debt Collector isn't easy. Hicky Dryden (Billy Connolly) is certainly a low-life ex- criminal who has left scars on many people during his career as a collector for the shadier side of loan sharking but, in his older years, he is a changed man (well, until aggravated). He is married to a lovely wife (Francesca Annis) who isn't totally aware of his past - although she knows a bit - but takes him as she has him now.Unfortunately, there is a cop, Gary Keltie (Ken Stott) who has a very long memory and a somewhat over-zealous desire to see justice done for many of Nicky's victims. There are times when you sympathise with Keltie and want to see Nicky get his and then there are times when you want him to fail.Good luck understanding some of the Scottish brogue during this movie (you may need subtitles) although the language of the underworld is pretty universal. Ultimately, both Nicky and Gary's outcomes are more determined by others that they are by themselves - but I'll let you find all that out on your own.
rogertaylor1947 This could have been a great film as the four protagonists each put in a strong performance especially Francesca Annis who is brilliant.It attempts to be a serious examination about whether a man's abhorrent violent past can ever be forgiven by his victims and whether those who take their duty to serve to protect seriously, like the police officer Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) (who had been instrumental in taking him off the streets some 18 years ago) who don't believe Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) is a changed man. Haunting all those directly involved are the harrowing past images of the torture and mayhem he inflicted on his victims.The film makes a well made contrast between those who can easily forgive because it is but a remote experience which happened to others of which they know little and those who have suffered either as victims or as those who were emotionally related to those victims. To the Edinburgh arty literati he had paid his price according to the official judicial system by serving a long jail sentence for murder and by appearing reformed through his talent developed in prison which squares his past and placates their easy conscience to forgive. Their easy forgiveness is contrasted to those who actually suffered whose still open wounds are articulated by the police detective Keltie character. The scepticism and disbelief of these silent witnesses is passionately articulated by the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott)character.It is unusual for a film to show so clearly this demarcation and divergence between the two views depending on where you are standing. Objectivity and forgiveness is easy if you are not a victim yourself and this is wonderfully brought out later in the film when one of those to whom he is now close but to whom past is another country has to live through the same torments when someone dear to them is murdered in a similarly bloody and brutal way to that by which Nickie Dryden had dispatched his earlier victim for which he had served his 18 years. Despite all the fancy surroundings which Dryden's talent and infamy combined have brought him, including his very "uptown girl" writer wife Val, played by Francesca Annis (who Keltie believes is partly attracted by the aura of his past infamy) Keltie believes him to be a fake: as also interestingly does the wannabe thug Flipper (Iain Robertson) who hero worships Dryden's past image.If it had stuck to portraying in a more realistic way the central theme of which, if either, of the 3 views (1) whether or not Dryden's debt "to society" is repaid by serving the officially sanctioned sentence and coming out a seemingly reformed character and accepted in official society or (2) whether he really is faking at being a changed man and (3) whether his debt can ever repaid and forgiven by his real victims (or those close to them) and those whose job it is to protect them, then this would have been a great film.As it is where it all falls apart into disbelief are several volcanic graphic, outrageous, completely over the top scenes, where the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) character himself commits violent acts which go way beyond angst and disbelief over demonstrating to himself and those he seeks to protect, that Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) can ever be anything but the psychopath he knew and put away. The only purpose of two of these scenes, the one at the art gallery and the other at a wedding that I can think of is that it contrasts the real difficulty which those who were or witnessed at 1st hand his victims suffering have in forgiving someone who harmed them with those to whom the remote experience of his perpetrated violence means very little. The 3rd scene is just so ridiculous and outrageous as it descends from an advocacy by Keltie by public challenges to the legitimacy of official forgiveness to that of private and personal revenge thereby descending to the similar level of depravity as the criminals whose behaviour he hates so much.The script seems to be saying that by Keltie being unable to contemplate a reformed perpetrator he sets in motion his own destruction being unable to shake off his "lifer" grudge against Dryden.I find it difficult for even the most conscientious detective, 18 years on, to be so obsessed to the point of near insanity with one particular past criminal given the number of hard cases he would have come across in the meantime especially one who is no longer trying to reestablish himself on old stomping grounds (literally) that he would jeopardise not only his career but put his life on the line to pursue a current non-criminal even if he is completely convinced that Nickie Dryden is a fraud.
choder I really can't believe how highly rated this film is on these pages. The plot seemed to be unnecessarily full of very obvious twists (who actually thought that the policeman had killed Dryden's son?) The climactic stabbing scene was too awful to watch apart from on fast forward, and the attempt at a happy ending just lodged in the throat. All the male participants were mentally unstable which ment that there was no sympathy for any of them. I can't believe that my local paper described it as "funny", surely some mistake?
Lemos Ken Stott who is the policeman who just keeps on hounding Billy Connolly an ex-con, even after the latter has served his sentence, puts in a really brilliant performance. Francesca Annis as Connolly's wife is very good as well. Well paced and riveting throughout this film is well worth seeing when one is sick of all the bang-wham of the big American movies.

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