Trespass Against Us: EW review

Want to see Magneto hide from a police helicopter by lying beneath a cow? Then by all means, hasten to watch this feature debut from British TV director Adam Smith (Doctor Who), set among the U.K.’s rural-dwelling criminal community. Brendan Gleeson plays Colby Cutler, the religious-minded, education-hating leader of a nefarious gang-cum-extended family who live in trailers outside the city of Gloucester.

X-Men franchise star Michael Fassbender is Colby’s son Chad, an illiterate getaway driver, who hopes to give his two young children a better lot in life than he was handed by getting them schooled and moving his family into an actual house. Those plans are endangered when Fassbender’s character is persuaded by his father to burgle the mansion of a local bigwig, which lands Chad atop the cops’ most-wanted list and, temporarily, under the aforementioned livestock.

Gleeson and Fassbender enthusiastically feast on their meaty roles, with expert support from Rory Kinnear (Black Mirror) as a policeman, Sean Harris (Prometheus) as an associate of the Cutlers, and Lyndsey Marshal (The Hours) as Chad’s beleaguered wife, Kelly. But director Smith and screenwriter Alastair Siddons fail to fully milk the dramatic potential of their characters. B–