WARNING!!!

SPOILERS BELOW...DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW!

If I ever meet Eddie with ginger hair, I will be noticed going very swiftly in the opposite direction. His character, as I mentioned on the board, you like immediately. He's a bit of a sarky bastard, but you like him.

We first encounter him wandering round a murder scene in plastic overalls, talking into a dictaphone. The main female cop, as she leaves the scene, hits him on the arse with some papers, and says "Has anyone ever told you how *sexy* you are in those overalls?" to which he replies "Yeah! Your mum!"

He walks like Eddie, and his inflections are Eddie's. You immediately like the character, if you're an Eddie fan, and I suspect, as I liked *all* the "good guy" characters, (and they were all somewhat rough around the edges, especially the male cop) even if you're not. When we see the character without his overalls, he's wearing a really naff brown suit. 

Anyway, quick rundown of the film: Man meets a woman in a bar, tries to chat her up. Bizarrely, it works, and they go back to his place. There's a knock on the door, which he assumes is the neighbour complaining. This is interspersed with the police arriving, and with the investigation of the murder scene - the woman's throat has been cut. He opens the door, and is knocked over. Someone enters, and kills the woman. He runs, but is caught immediately. However, they can't make it stick, because they can't find the knife, which would disprove his story. So they let him go but have him watched.

He's walking and gets to a peep show, where the man on the door knows his name and tells him to come inside. He's suspicious, but does so. Inside, there is a smart businessman at a desk, who makes him an offer he doesn't understand, but promises him that if he leaves, he will be either imprisoned for murder, or killed.

He doesn't realise he's being followed, but the man in the suit tells him, and he goes to find the barman who was serving that night. By the time he does, the man is dead. It is blamed, of course, on him.

The dead woman turns out to have had a false ID. The female cop starts to investigate this, and finds that the company she worked for had only an email address. She gets the guy in the IT department (one of the weak points in the film, this, I'm afraid, but isn't technology always?) to trace them. Soon, the IT guy is killed in a hit-and-run. She starts her investigation again, looking for the things he found. She doesn't last long. I think I've forgotten a couple of deaths in there. She asked the remaining IT bod if anyone else had been in. Yeah, the Eddie character had, and she'd left him there.

The point is, anyone who gets close to finding out anything about Shackleton Consulting dies. He hid out for the night with an american girl, who's quite nuts. She tells him to come back. He goes to find the guy in the peep show again, and a gun is pulled on him. A car screeches to a halt, and Eddie's character screams "They're gonna kill you get in the fuckin' car!"

The guy does, and the Eddie character takes him to a park, where he starts to explain everything, and give him the evidence he needs to clear his name. He explains that Shackleton are an organisation for hire by anyone who can afford them - governments, terrorists, individuals. You want an embassy blown up and blamed on someone else? You call Shackleton. They're untouchable, because they're technically not based anywhere - all they have is an email address. They have no ethics, they will work for anyone if the price is right. The woman was killed because she'd been leaking information to another organisation. How does he know all this? He used to work for them. Little things. Forensic stuff. He hands over the envelope of evidence, but explains "a lot of this came from the conspiracy web sites, so I'd take it with a pinch of s" and keels over as he is shot.

Shots start pinging around the guy, so he legs it, with the envelope. He looks at the contents - there's a picture of the male cop shaking hands with the guy who lives in the peep show - according to eddie's character, Shackleton's No.2

He goes back to the american woman's place, and the police are waiting - including the cop who is behind it all. The american woman gets them out and they run. He has a gun, which she says to give to her, before he blows his foot off, and she falls - dead.

He takes the gun, and runs. He shoots the guy who's been sniping at him, and who actually did all the killings he's been blamed for. Then the cop catches up with him. He tries to explain - he has the evidence! Hugh (ah, that's his name) gave him it. "Hugh's a liar" "NO! Hugh's dead, you should have left someone to pin it on!"

The cop taunts him about not having the balls to shoot him, but he does. Armed police have caught up with him. Shackleton himself comes out of the shadows, and stands between the Henchman of earlier (the guy who was on the door, and about to kill him when Hugh drove up) and the No 2. The guy realises, I guess, ( or is otherwise terminally stupid) the only way to get out of this, is to go with the story he was given. In flashes we see Hugh altering the image, so it is the cop, and not himself shaking hands with the No 2. The guy tries to explain, he has evidence, the cop was behind it, it was done by that guy over there, with the *big* gun. There is a bang, and the screen goes white then black. The credits roll. There is not "used to work for" with organisations like Shackleton, unless you're dead.

"Hugh" has eliminated everyone who could have incriminated him, and manipulated the guy into taking him to them all. He's killed friends, and let the guy think he had the evidence to clear himself, at the same time making him a cop-killer, so there's no possible way he could get off.

He's a complete and utter bastard, and you only find out in the very last scene.

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