Red Mercury (film)

The film is a thriller about a terrorist kidnapping. Three Islamist terrorist bomb-makers have just obtained some red mercury, a semi-mythical explosive. They get a tipoff that their safehouse is about to be raided and they flee on foot from the police. In an attempt to escape they kidnap hostages in a Greek restaurant in London and threaten to detonate a bomb containing the titular explosive. Eventually they are defeated and the hostages are saved and the film ends. ==Cast==

The film was written, produced and filmed over four months. ==Release==

The film was sold at the 2005 Cannes Film Market. It was released in the UK shortly after the 7 July 2005 London bombings, rendering its theme of Islamic terrorism particularly topical. It was screened at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2006. It did not have a theatrical release in the US, being released to DVD in June 2007. ==Reception==

Variety compared it to Dog Day Afternoon and Juggernaut, as a socially-committed thriller with more talk than action. Their critic praised the technical values and performances, but found some of the plotting to be "sloppy" and "forced" with some characters "underwritten". Jack G Shaheen criticised it for the "one-dimensional" portrayal of the villains. ==References==