There’s a long tradition of British crime films wrapping up violence in bespoke tailoring and razor-edged repartee. All the Devils Are Here, directed by Barnaby Roper, tears clean through that fabric. Set against the wind-beaten wilderness of Dartmoor, this stripped-back thriller trades urban swagger for psychological claustrophobia, unfolding as a taut, talky chamber piece steeped in existential angst and often unexpected mordant humour. Imagine Get Carter or The Mackintosh Man rewritten for the stage, refracted through the absurdist lens of Withnail & I.
The premise is a tightly wound pressure cooker: four criminals — Ronnie (Eddie Marsan), Grady (Sam Claflin), Royce (Tienne Simon), and Numbers (Burn Gorman) — take refuge in an isolated safe house following a botched heist. Cut off from their handler and with the walls seemingly closing in, what begins as a tense waiting game gradually unspools into a volatile power struggle. Old resentments resurface, allegiances fracture, and soon the threat isn’t from law enforcement or rival factions — but from within their own ranks.
The majority of the film’s drama unfolds around a single table, lending the piece a theatrical intensity that borders on suffocating; every creak, every sideways glance feels loaded, a coiled spring about to snap.
But it’s the performances that really ignite the film’s volatile core. Marsan is a revelation as Ronnie — a weathered, world-weary figure burdened with enough regret to sink a ship. His Ronnie isn’t the sort of gangster British cinema tends to celebrate. No loud suits or cockney bravado here. Just a man who’s done terrible things and knows it. In one brilliant moment, he brutally beats a man with a telephone, only for the camera to cut to him wearing a frilly apron — having just cooked a fry-up — a haunting glimpse into fractured masculinity.
Simon holds his own as the younger, unsteady Royce, who seems caught somewhere between maintaining a macho facade and outright panic. Meanwhile, Claflin’s Grady embodies more of that classic Cockney swagger, firmly in the Michael Caine tradition — cool and dread-inducingly unpredictable. His relentless provocation of Ronnie is charged with subtext, as Ronnie sees in Grady a reflection of his younger self, intensifying the already suffocating tension within the safe house.
Gorman’s Numbers delivers an unforgettable performance. At first, he comes across as quiet, understated comic relief — his oddness setting him apart from the other criminals. But as the story unfolds, his character takes a sharp turn into something far stranger and more unsettling. That uncanny edge brings a touch of Withnail & I’s theatrical madness to the film, yet it never lets the absurdity get in the way of the genuine menace.
The title, lifted straight from Shakespeare’s The Tempest — “Hell is empty and all the devils are here” — hangs over the film like a dark omen. Whether by design or serendipity, it perfectly captures a world cracked by betrayal and suspicion. In a time when trust is thin and loyalties can shatter at the click of a finger, the devils aren’t some far-off menace — they’re the relentless, ruthless impulses that reside within us all, compelling survival at any cost.
Moody and atmospheric, and elevated by four finely tuned performances, All the Devils Are Here is a tense little gem that dodges the usual gangster clichés. It won’t be for everyone — more words than bullets, more simmer than blood spray — but for those who prefer their crime thrillers smart and slow-burning, this one delivers in spades.
Verdict:
All the Devils Are Here receives a U.S. theatrical and digital debut on September 26 — with a simultaneous UK digital release.
