Reviews
Greatrex

Cannes World Film FestivalReview (27.03.2025)
The premise for this screenplay is absolutely brilliant. This feels, indeed, like Catch Me If You Can mixed with Sherlock Holmes, and there are plenty of things to like about this project. The atmosphere is delightful – the writer succeeds in recreating 1850s England, the story is full of action and suspense, and it’s fantastic to find out that this was inspired by real-life events. 

Even though the script has a gigantic cast, the writer has managed to make every player unique. They all have well-defined voices and personalities, and even if they are not particularly likable, they are interesting to follow – such is the case of Greatrex.

Actually, his character intrigued us quite a lot. In the opening pages, he was somewhat likable. He is smart, and a bit coy, and we were rooting for him to escape prison and get Jessie – that scene when they first meet is lovely. The way they flirt and talk makes us think that Greatrex is genuinely interested in her and that they could have a nice love relationship… but once he starts fooling around with other women and getting into tricky businesses, he clearly turns into a villain and this is something rather fascinating to see.

Greatrex is confident, and smart, and fails to his word every time he can and a great job with McCall as we get to see him beyond the lawful figure.

Finally, we have Jessie and Jane. It’s not ideal to have two characters whose names are kind of similar, but both of them are so well-written that it was impossible to mix them up. To be honest, we were very fond of Jessie right from the first time she appeared. And as for Jane, she is quite a tricky character. She is “the other woman”, but it’s impossible not to like her due to her devotion towards Greatrex and free attitude.

The dialogue works quite nicely. Again, despite the large cast, every character has a well-defined voice (especially Jessie, whose Scottish persona gave her quite a unique style).

To find out that this is a script from the same writer as Going Underground is amazing.

The atmosphere is engaging, the action is incredibly well-written, and the dialogue is fitting for the time and place.

Characters - 9/10
Dialogue - 9/10