Director Stephen Poliakoff with Charles Dance and Cassie Stuart

A dud of a film – stilted, with over-expositionary dialogue and some wooden acting; basically just not good enough to keep you in its orbit. Typical Poliakoff – a fascination with the recent past that pulls you in and a disregard for credibility or coherence that pushes you away. This one was a psychogeographic conspiracy theory with gaping holes and sidetracks that led nowhere. The scene where the secret service heavies stopped for their tea break was straight out of Astérix chez les Bretons. (Or perhaps the writer might have been hoping for more of a Blow Up vibe.)

And yet . . . While it didn’t succeed as a good film in its own right, there was something about it that set me thinking. I liked the use of locations – particularly the Kingsway tram depot that I remember (the site of which I shall walk past tomorrow) – and the sense of other lives at other times in this selfsame spot. It reminded me of my little trip into the London underground. There was some humour – just not in the attempt at mismatched couple comedy, which misfired thanks to some poor dialogue and worse acting. There was a side interest in a 1980s take on video culture and declining attention span. (So ironic that Richard E Grant announced that he hadn’t watched a film all the way through for some years when I was thinking about the off button.)

Comparisons to other films: Radio On for its interest in screens and really looking at things. I also thought of The Edge of Darkness from the 1980s and its take on buried secrets (literally and metaphorically), government conspiracy and cover-up. That also grew increasingly unbelievable as a literal plot, but such was its quality that you were carried along with it. No such luck with Hidden City.