Rose (Helen Clifford) is a drug addict and a hooker. She is also a
mother, but her profession and lifestyle have left her daughter Ellie
(Chelsea Impey) emotionally deprived. Eventually, her addiction turns Rose
to do the one thing she was never supposed to do, turning a trick on her
own time, without telling her pimp Blondy (Mike Mitchell) - an egomaniac
crime kingpin who doesn't shy away from any sort of violence - about it.
No big deal you might think, but Blondy has his eyes everywhere, and
before you know it, he has her kidnapped, raped and beaten up before
sending her home again, expecting her to work for him again once back to
health, or else ... Blondy has told his right-hand man Tony (Patrick
Regis) to take care of Ellie for the time being ... and Tony makes a good
job of it, because he has grown to like both Ellie and Rose, and the
horrible things that come with his job have long come back to haunt him.
So once Rose is released from Blondy more dead than alive, he moves in
with her and Ellie, their secret being guarded by Rose's landlady Yondra
(Eileen Daly), a woman on Blondy's payroll that has long been freaked out
by his methods. With their romance slowly blossoming, Tony and Rose plan
to leave town together with Ellie and start life aneww, far away from
Blondy and men of his ilk. But then Blondy finds out about this, and he
doesn't react favourably to girls who want to quit and employees who want
to help them ... Allegedly based on a true story, Rose
feels much more like a gangster movie, and a pretty good one at that, as
while it features quite a few genre clichés (which I'm not complaining
about) it is also a film with heart, and that said, it has still got all
the action in the right places, is expertly paced and features hardly a
dull moment. And if you add to that a rather impressive cast and a
direction that finds the balance between style and emotional involvement,
you've got yourself a pretty good movie. Recommended!
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