Project Detail

The Debt Collector

Synopsis

A dark contemporary thriller set in Edinburgh. Nick Dryden has just been released from prison after serving 16 years for murder. In his youth he was Edinburgh's most notorious and violent criminal but his rehabilitation has been remarkable, and now he finds himself a free man once more, married to a successful journalist and much lauded in the art world for his striking and disturbing sculptures. For Gary Keltie, the policeman who arrested him, life has been different. Depressed by the futility of his job and alone in the world apart from his ageing mother, he is outraged by Dryden's new found success and makes it his mission to sabotage it. Flipper, a seriously disturbed adolescent gangster working his way up on the criminal ladder, is also obsessed by Dryden albeit for reasons of hero worship rather than hatred. The three men are on a collision course in this modern Scottish myth showing the extremes of human nature.

Details

Year
1999
Type of project
Features
Format
35mm
Director
Anthony Neilson
Producer
Graham Broadbent, Damian Jones
Director of Photography
Dick Pope BSC
Principal cast
Billy Connolly, Ken Stott, Francesca Annis, Iain Robertson
Screen Writer
Anthony Neilson

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Dragon Pictures 23 Golden Square London W1R 3PA Tel: 020 7734 6303 Fax: 020 7734 6202

Sales Company

Film Four International 124 Horseferry Road London SW1P 2TX Tel: 020 7306 8602 Fax: 020 7306 8361 Email: sbrucesmith@channel4.co.uk astreet@channel4.co.uk

Page updates

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