Conjuring up sympathy for George Nadar's trouble-prone Canadian criminal in Seth Holt's tense British thriller "Nowhere to Go" is a difficult proposition. First, this despicable dastard lacks an ounce of honor. Second, events always take the worst turn for him, no matter how evasive he remains. Without a doubt, Paul Gregory (George Nadar of "Away All Boats") is a handsome bloke but a first-class hooligan. He swindles a kind, little, old lady out of her valuable coin collection. He deliberately allows himself to be nabbed by the authorities, but before this happens, he stashes the coins in a suitcase at a firm specializing in safe deposit boxes. Indeed, Gregory wants to get caught, convicted, and then imprisoned. An accomplice of his, Victor Sloane (Bernard Lee of "Goldfinger"), breaks into the prison and provides our anti-heroic protagonist with enough explosives to blast the bars of his cell window so he can escape. Holt orchestrates the opening gambit of this nifty thriller to perfection. The problem with "Nowhere to Go" is its doom-laden narrative along with the odious villainy of its leading man. Why would anybody root for a rat like Nader's Gregory. Clocking in at 103 minutes, "Nowhere to Go" lives up to its dead-end title. "Mosquito Squadron" lenser Paul Beeson does a terrific job photographing this gritty British thriller in black & white with some interesting pictorial touches. Kenneth Tynan and Holt adapted Donald Mackenzie's first novel.
Review of Nowhere to Go
