Island life: "Retreat"

In Carl Tibbetts' effective Brit quickie Retreat, a couple struggling to recover in the wake of a miscarriage (Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton) head away for a few days on a deserted Highland outcrop only to find the experience less relaxing than they'd hoped: military jets are frequently heard sweeping overhead, the generator soon packs up, and a selection of firearms are discovered stashed about the place. This is even before the arrival of a bloodied young man (Jamie Bell), who stumbles into the couple's cottage and begins boarding up the windows, convinced an airborne virus is set to hit the area in the very near future.

A fairly far-fetched set-up, then - the distributors have done well to get the film into circulation before Steven Soderbergh's starrier, globetrotting Contagion, against which it might well have appeared small fry - but Tibbetts and co-writer Janice Hallett develop it credibly, and the actors, presumably stuck on the same soundstage day in day out, give it further heft. If Newton initially appears no more than fetchingly distressed - her rear shot in close-up as a prize over which the two men will come to blows - she comes through strongly in the latter stages, and Tibbetts locates something unfamiliar in Bell, his brisk, no-nonsense movements - think Billy Elliot retooled for maximum threat - very skilfully pitted against Murphy's rather fey, wheezing metrosexuality. (Those distributors were also lucky to get Retreat out before the Straw Dogs remake, which operates from a similar home-invasion template.) No more than functional overall, it nevertheless moves appreciably, better managed than at least 75% of British genre fare - you hope it'd spur producers to give Tibbetts the money to do another, and encourage him to take a few more risks.

Retreat is on release in selected cinemas, and also available through the FilmFlex on demand service, before its DVD release on Monday.