THE ARBITER

***

Directored by Marc Price. 

Starring Craig Russell, Jon Xue Zhang, Georgina Leonidas, Jasmine Summer.  

Action Comedy, UK, 2025, 109 mins.

Reviewed as part of FrightFest 2025 - World Premiere

Funny, crazed and bloodsoaked, director Marc Price is back with THE ARBITER, a quirky Brit action comedy that features various warring factions in London struggling for supremacy, who are only allowed to fight after nightfall and without guns. There is a DOOMSDAY (2008) vibe, with the gangs using lethal parkour or rollerskating to rule the streets.

The rollerskates gang, like 1975’s ROLLERBALL, give a violent MAD MAX style craziness, with the competing squads mowing each other down with inventive venom… and the occasional ice cream truck. This murder-method has been done before in THE ICE CREAM TRUCK (2017), and ICE CREAM MAN (1995), although here James Groom as Police Chief Sargent has a nice line in demented killers using this method of destruction. In one scene of underground violence, Groom entertainingly manages to hang out of the window of an ice cream van to fire at will, while chomping on a choc ice and chewing the scenery with equal ease. 

Despite a relatively minor budget and some plot loopholes, such as characters on roller skates easily climbing multiple flights of stairs, Price adds tiny human touches over the cartoon violence and delivers a Brit action comedy head and ‘bloody’ shoulders above the norm.  

Nina Romain