New Town Killers (2008) - Synopsis
Sean, 16, is a good kid but he has no money and little prospect of a prosperous future. Then again, that’s the case for all of the kids growing up in the shadows of the relentlessly bourgeois, corporate comfort of the suburb called The New Town.
Sean lives with his sister Alice, a girl whose taste for the little luxuries in life exceeds her credit limit. One morning, they are visited by a woman who demands that Alice pay her debts because her creditors are getting angry – if she doesn’t pay soon she will have to repay in kind by being a drug mule. Sean berates his sister for taking out a needless loan from such dangerous people.
Meanwhile, Jamie is being recruited by Alistair to play a game, success in which will mean that Jamie will be hired by Alistair and given more wealth and power than he could imagine.
Finding a menial job as a washroom attendant, Sean tries to raise some cash. On his first day, though, he is framed for theft by Jamie and Alistair. Why do this to Sean, a harmless young nobody? They want him to play a game – all Sean has to do is avoid being captured by them until 9am the following morning. That’s it. If he succeeds all he has to do is use a key they give him to collect enough money to save Alice from a locker at the train station.
Sean refuses to play the game but is faced with prostitution as the only way of earning enough money. Refusing to pleasure a middle-aged man, Sean makes the decision to call Alistair and Jamie: he’s in.
The chase begins immediately. Sean tries to skip town but finds the train and bus stations impassable due to events suspiciously related to Alistair and his game. Sean soon learns the game has higher stakes than he thought when the pursuit begins to get extreme: he witnesses Alistair mercilessly attack a homeless man and his dog and learns that Alistair somehow knows everything about him and his life.
Ducking through the sinewy alleys of The Old Town, leaping from buildings and scaling walls is futile: whatever he does, Alistair and Jamie are close behind.
