A corrupt cop Michael leads a team who tackle drug trafficking in London. But they act more like a gang of criminals themselves. Michael habitually cuts deals with the dealers but the arrival of two violent Albanian criminals, who not only traffic drugs but young women as well, presents him with a moral dilemma; while at the same time his team's corruption is threatened with exposure by an old colleague from his past who is assigned to work alongside them.

The hyena of the title is of course the bad cop Michael played by Peter Ferdinando. He is a pretty unglamourized central character. I was brought to mind of the film Pusher, particularly the remake set in London. Both films have protagonists who are engulfed in immorality and who are set on a downward spiral, while both also have scarily authentic ethnic gangsters from the south eastern Mediterranean providing the main threat of brutality. But maybe it's this very familiarity that is the problem, in that it seems like we have been here before with British crime flicks. What does stand out somewhat are the occasional moments of extreme grimness. On a few occasions we are presented with pretty visceral violence or the results of it, while there is also the repulsive sight of an overweight man having sex with a comatose girl to contend with. These horrible moments do hit home though and ensure this is a film that doesn't pull its punches. It's a film that is stylised at times, such as the opening assault of the neon lit club, and with an effective moody soundtrack from, of all people, The The. But it certainly isn't over-stylised which is something many other recent examples in the crime genre are, this ensures it has a grittier aesthetic overall which fits in with the story. On the whole though, there's nothing really new here though so in the final analysis it's a solid film as opposed to a very good one.

I'm usually not really a fan of these slick, sick British crime thrillers that are invariably full of thuggery and profanity in equal measure, but HYENA turns out to be something special. It's a blacker-than-black tale of a thuggish cop (played well by the unknown Peter Ferdinando) who finds himself embroiled in a plot involving some very nasty characters indeed. The film opens with a shocking scene of violence and continues to shock from that point onward. It's bleak and nasty yet it somehow keeps you watching, almost like a gruesome car wreck on the motorway. Stephen Graham and the other cast members put in authentic performances and the film hits really hard in much the same way as an early Nicolas Winding Refn movie.

Detective Sargeant Michael Logan is a corrupt cop and finds himself getting involved in a turf war between Albanians and Turks on the seedy streets of London's underworld

And that's really it as far as plot goes but regardless of this I was dying to see HYENA since I'm a massive fan of Johnson . Not Gerard Johnson the director but Matt Johnson the composer here once known and revered as The The who made some of the greatest , innovative and diverse music of the 1980s . This innovation meant he wasn't the most popular or best selling artist in an era dominated by manufactured plastic pop by the hit factory of Stock , Aitken and Waterman and by the early 1990s The The were releasing fewer stuff that was increasingly under promoted and Matt and his collective haven't released any material via mainstream means since Naked Self in 2000 . In other words if you want to hear any new material you'll have to go out of your way . The good old days of popping in to Woolworths to buy a new release are long gone . You can download stuff via ITunes and Amazon but the material would have to be available in the first place

!!!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!!!

On the surface HYENA isn't all that different from another recent watch FILTH which has the same premise of corrupt cup finding redemption of sorts but that film suffered badly by being sourced from Irvine Welsh and when you've seen one Welsh film adaptation you've probably seen them all . HYENA is different and a rather difficult watch in some parts with rather disturbing parts such as a rape scene which doesn't leave much to the viewer's imagination . Gritty doesn't really do it justice . Gerard Johnson obviously doesn't have a big budget to play with but he does show imagination such as a police raid at the start of the film being directed in an extremely trippy manner . Since it's a character driven story revolving around a corrupt cop it's important that you cast correctly and Peter Ferdinando is very good as Logan and deserves to be better known . He is ably supported by the "usual suspects" of actors you'd expect to see in an independent low budget British movie but that said I've watched a lot of low budget indies where the cast are uniformly dreadful and one wonders why Johnson gets it right here when so many others have been getting it patently wrong ? Nice , moody soundtrack from Matt Johnson too that compliments the visuals and gives some of us hope that his career hasn't come to an abrupt jarring end like the ending of HYENA which is rather frustrating