Hyena (film)
Hyena is a 2014 British neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Gerard Johnson. Plot. Michael Logan is a detective sergeant in London, working as part of a specialised taskforce alongside his friends and colleagues Chris, Martin and Keith. The taskforce's unconventional and corrupt operations bring the officers into contact with European drug syndicates, with them happy to turn a blind eye to their dealings for either a cut, or electing to confiscate suppliers' merchandise for their own profit. Logan meets with a contact in a Turkish drug cartel, who is organising a large scale  shipment that he has invested £100,000 into with the hope of netting an even better profit. However, during the meeting his contact is ambushed and attacked by members of a rival Albanian gang, run by the Kabashi brothers, looking to expand their power. Logan meets with and aims to provide the Albanians with the same service he provided the Turks, but they aren't easily led. Meanwhile, he and his colleagues are being investigated by the Professional Standards Department, headed up by Detective Inspector Nick Taylor. Complicating matters further, Logan is seconded from the Taskforce to a new operation  run by the vice unit, aiming at investigating the Kabashi's involvement in people trafficking. It is headed up by DI David Knight, a former friend and colleague of Logans who he fell out with a decade prior. Release. "Hyena" was the opening film at the 2014 Edinburgh Film Festival and later in 2014 was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Tribeca acquired North American rights to the film. It ran on 24 April 2015 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Reception. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 44  reviews, with an average rating of 6.11/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Sinking in with as much baleful bite as its namesake, "Hyena" offers a dark, stylish, and impressively gritty addition to the British crime genre." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Accolades. "Hyena" won the main Jury prize at Beaune Film Festival 2015, Best Film At 2014's Sitges Film Festival's Fantàstic Òrbita section and at Les Arcs European Cinema Festival, Peter Ferdinando won the Métronews Best Actor award for  his performance in "Hyena". Soundtrack. The soundtrack to Hyena was composed and recorded by Matt Johnson under the moniker The The, his British post-punk genre-busting band known more recently for a series of parallel soundtrack works. Matt is the brother of writer and director Gerard Johnson, and has provided soundtrack input to many of his brother's earlier works including short film Mug and the feature-length Tony. The soundtrack is a genre-crossing piece rooted in early electronica and ambient genres with a central European influence to reflect the origins of the main villain protagonists. Hyena (film