A Landscape of Lies review – film-making frauds serve up a taxing watch

There’s something heroic in the backstory to this ropey Brit geezer-gangster film; it would be nice to report that it’s a classic, or even good. Sadly no. But maybe James Franco or Mel Brooks will make a hilarious drama about how it came to be made. A Landscape of Lies began as a phoney movie that existed only on paper: a scam to defraud the tax authorities, who suspiciously demanded to see the finished print. So, with some chutzpah, these dodgy fake-film chancers quickly cobbled together an actual movie – this movie – with its director and cast doing their best and entirely unaware of the illegality. Their employers were convicted in 2013, and only now can the film be seen: a clunkily written and embarrassingly acted extravaganza of silliness, like many another more expensive and notionally legal Britpic. Danny Midwinter goes madly over the top as the psychotic East End gangster whose sister is a couples counsellor treating a businessman that he wants to threaten. The film expires in a volley of twitches and groans.