THE ALTRUIST

A man kicks back in the comfort of his living room, lighting a cigar and swigging from a bottle of beer. Behind him, a bald-headed brute approaches on tiptoes, knife in hand. As the brute nears, the man senses the presence and calmly announces that he's ready and waiting to die. The brute is visibly disappointed by this, and points out that he wanted the murder to be a surprise.

At that moment, the man's wife calls him from upstairs. This delights the brute, who rams his knife into the man's skull them makes for the stairs. The man chases him and in the ensuing chaos both wind up being shot dead.

At this point an onscreen caption informs us: "Every year in the United States 30,000 people commit murder. In that same time 60,000 people commit suicide. Wouldn't it be great if someone could get these people together?"

Such is the job of Terminal Assist.

Nick (Billy Franks, TRACK 16) is the head of Terminal Assist. He swears more often than Tony Montana, has a permanently ill temper and yet is curiously likeable.

We first meet Nick on the phone to his office, grilling his employees over the aforementioned double-homicide, which has made it onto the local TV news. He wants to know who the bald assassin was, and which one of his employees hired him. His receptionist Toni (Jonene Nelson) eventually confesses that she organised the job especially for her wanna-be-killer boyfriend.

Rather than fire Toni, Nick has bigger things to deal with when he arrives at his office. Two detectives rough him up for breaking his deal on no "in-town" hits (all killing provided by his suicide-friendly firm must be conducted out of town), and is told that their monthly hush-money payments have just increased.

On top of that, Nick is struck by the image of the homicide widow's face on TV. Her name is Teresa (Bobbi Ashton, ADDICTED TO MURDER: TAINTED BLOOD) and for his own reasons Nick becomes obsessed with getting to know her.

But, as he sits back in his office at the end of a day from Hell, Nick's voiceover tells us that although his business has been successful for the past 3 years, this day was to be "the beginning of the end".

As Nick becomes more engrossed with the notion of getting close to the mourning Teresa, a Private Eye firm hire a woman to pose as a suicidal loser and enlist Terminal Assist's euthanasia-style services. If that wasn't bad enough, someone also starts killing off Nick's employees one-by-one ...

Shot on digital, THE ALTRUIST is an exceptionally well-crafted film. Tautly written and directed by Mick McLaughlin (TRACK 16), it's a tense and fluently paced affair. For the large part superbly edited and with a great deal of care in the composition of each individual scene, THE ALTRUIST also benefits from above-average performances. Franks, in particular, exudes screen presence. His score, too, adds to the disquieting atmospherics.

The only downside to an otherwise smart and original film is the intermittent moments of comic relief, which seem at loggerheads with the rest of the action. Particularly, there's two support characters - Wease and The Force - who will make you cringe each time they appear.

Still, the film works in general and builds to a satisfyingly dark twist ending. A cut above the usual no-budget fare.

The film is presented uncut in non-anamorphic 1.66:1 and looks fine. There's some image disturbance in darker scenes but given the source this is forgivable. The English 2.0 audio comes without flaws.

The film can be accessed via 21 chapters, although there is no scene-selection menu page on the disc.

An original trailer is the only announced extra (it doesn't do the film justice), but keep watching the main feature after the end credits for some outtakes and stills, set to a country-type song by Franks entitled "The Altruist".

You could do a lot worse than having a gander at www.thealtruist.tv.

Review by Stu Willis