Twist

Imagine Charles Dickens sitting in a modern-day Shoreditch coffee shop, sipping an oat milk latte while watching a group of teenagers record a TikTok dance. That’s essentially the energy radiating from Twist (2021). I went into this expecting a disaster—the kind of "gritty reimagining" that usually ends up feeling like a corporate attempt to "reach the youth"—but what I found was a strange, hyperactive little heist film that looks way more expensive than its $2 million budget has any right to allow.

I watched this on a Tuesday afternoon while a particularly persistent housefly kept landing on the corner of my laptop screen, and honestly, the fly’s erratic buzzing matched the movie's editing style perfectly. Twist doesn’t just walk; it sprints, flips, and wall-runs through a London that looks like it was color-graded by someone who thinks the sun only shines in neon orange and teal.

Parkour, Paintings, and Pacing

Directed by Martin Owen (Anonymous Killers), the film swaps Victorian soot for London street art. Our titular hero, played by Raff Law (who carries a striking resemblance to his father, Jude Law, particularly in the "smoldering gaze" department), is a "street artist" who gets tangled up with a gang of grifters. Instead of picking pockets, they’re planning a high-stakes art heist involving a lost Hogarth painting.

The action is built almost entirely around parkour. It’s a bold choice for a low-budget indie, as good stunt work is expensive and bad stunt work looks like a middle-school gym class. To his credit, Owen and cinematographer Håvard Helle manage to make the rooftop chases feel fluid. There’s a relentless momentum here that reminded me of the early 2000s "Cool Britannia" wave, though it lacks the sharp wit of a Guy Ritchie script. Watching the crew navigate the London skyline, I couldn't help but feel that watching this movie feels like being trapped in a 90-minute energy drink commercial directed by someone who just discovered GoPro cameras. It’s loud, it’s fast, and it’s occasionally exhausting.

The Caine and the Chaos

The casting is where Twist gets truly surreal. You have Michael Caine—a man who has seen and done everything in cinema—playing Fagin. He’s not the manipulative, terrifying figure from the book; he’s more like a grumpy grandfather who happens to run a crime syndicate from a very trendy loft. Caine could do this in his sleep, and at times, it feels like he might be, but his presence gives the film a much-needed anchor.

Then there’s Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) as Sikes. Gender-swapping the villain was a stroke of genius, and Headey leans into the psychopathy with a terrifying, understated coolness. She’s easily the best thing in the movie. On the other hand, we have Rita Ora as "Dodge" (the Artful Dodger). Ora brings plenty of pop-star charisma, but the script doesn't give her much to do beyond looking stylish in a newsboy cap. The chemistry between Raff Law and Sophie Simnett (as Red, the Nancy stand-in) is serviceable, but the romance feels like a box-checking exercise rather than a beating heart.

The $2 Million Magic Trick

The most impressive thing about Twist isn't the story—which is as thin as a Victorian waif—but the production itself. This is a "Contemporary Indie" in the truest sense. In an era where Disney spends $200 million on a movie that looks like gray mush, Martin Owen used a shoestring $2 million to create a vibrant, glossy-looking feature.

Turns out, they pulled this off by being incredibly resourceful with London’s geography. Instead of building massive sets, the production used the actual rooftops of the city, filming in a "run-and-gun" style that kept the energy high and the costs low. Raff Law reportedly did a significant portion of his own stunt work, which saved the production a fortune on stunt doubles and allowed the camera to stay close to his face during the chases. This kind of "hustle" filmmaking is exactly what defines the modern indie scene; it’s about making the lack of resources look like a deliberate aesthetic choice.

The film was caught in that weird pandemic-era limbo, skipping a wide theatrical release for a debut on Sky Cinema in the UK. It’s a "streaming era" artifact—a movie designed to be scrolled past on a menu until the bright colors and familiar names make you pause for 90 minutes.

Ultimately, Twist is a victim of its own ambition. It tries so hard to be "now" that it forgets to be "forever." It’s a fun enough distraction if you’re a fan of heist tropes or just want to see Michael Caine collect a paycheck, but it lacks the narrative depth to make the Dickens connection feel like anything more than a marketing gimmick. It’s a flashy, well-intentioned experiment that proves you can make a big-looking movie on a small-looking budget, even if the script is still stuck in the nineteenth century.