THE TOLL: A Wicked Welsh Western

Wales is an untapped resource for British cinema. There’s a lot of movies made about England, Ireland, and Scotland in all kinds of genres. But Wales often gets missed out. And it’s a shame for a variety of reasons as Wales is a beautiful part of the world and birthplace for some incredible actors like Sir Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Matthew Rhys, Michael Sheen, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Ruth Jones, and Jonathon Pryce. And I’ll be honest, looking at the list of Welsh thespians, I was shocked at how many there were as so many of them don’t use their native accent in their roles.

Perhaps I’m biased as when I lived in England my house was a twenty-minute drive from the Welsh/English border, so we’d often drive over to walk the dog or visit Llangollen. It’s a gorgeous part of the world but movie-wise all I can think of is 1997’s Twin Town and the less said there, the better. So let’s look at The Toll, a movie from England’s Canada, Wales. I hope that doesn’t cause us to get hate mail.

Y Dyn heb New

The Toll is a Coen-and-Tarantino-inspired Welsh Western (Welshtern?) that takes its cues from Unforgiven and then flips it on its head. It is the story of an unnamed toll booth operator known simply as Toll Booth on character’s phone screens and in hushed tones. Michael Smiley (Tyres from Spaced and regular Ben Wheatly collaborator) has been working the quietest toll booth in Wales for nearly 30 years. He appears to live a quiet, unassuming life of solitude operating a barrier on a long stretch of peaceful road.

Of course, not all is as it seems and the arrival of a face from his past sets off a bloody and violent chain of events that pulls in local gangsters, farmers, the London mob, the one honest cop, and an Elvis impersonator.

The music, stand-offs, eye close-ups, use of six-shooters, and bandits are all from the Western playbook but also coated in a thick Welsh charm. It never feels like Ryan Andrew Hopper is trying to make a Western but didn’t have the budget to go to Monument Valley. It’s like Rian Johnson’s Brick, in that it takes the trappings of one genre but makes the new setting the key to the story.

The most interesting subversion Hopper does is take the retired gunslinger trope and then add in the idea that this particular retired criminal is actually continuing his criminal ways. It’s like if Unforgiven’s William Munny married, had kids, started a farm, but still shot people in the back. Toll Booth has vanished from his London bosses after performing some kind of unspeakable betrayal, but also quickly managed to create a tiny Welsh criminal empire of his own.

Y Brodyr Coen

Other than the obvious Western connections, the other movie The Toll brings to mind is Fargo. The movie and series of Fargo involve a lot of the time, characters finding themselves drowning in chaos and violence because they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and got in over their heads. With The Toll, there are different levels of criminal and the Welsh chancers who are just playing at gangster are the most tragic and Coen-esque.

As well as this mix of comic criminals and actually scary criminals there is a lone female cop, Catrin, played by Annes Elwy. She’s young, no-nonsense, and grieving her father’s hit-and-run death. Unlike the rest of the police force who seem happy to line their pockets and stay invisible, she’s committed to finding out just what the hell is happening around her as bodies pile up and she begins to notice that no one will talk about the man in the toll booth.

The framing device is Toll Booth telling Catrin the story of what’s happened, but in a convoluted, out-of-order way that leaves her and us trying to put the story in the right order. There’s an element of unreliable narrator but also of a man giving confession in the hopes of saving his life.

Conclusion: The Toll

The Toll, at a tight 85 minutes, is a snappy crime movie that hits the ground running and doesn’t ease off the gas until the credits. The cast is incredible with Smiley and Elwy as the standouts, with supporting turns from Paul Kaye and Iwan Rheon as hapless Welsh small-time hoods who add a layer of, in Kaye’s case, absurd comedy and with Rheon a bit of tragedy for a led astray youth.

Smiley is excellent at portraying a sense of annoyance and boredom with the world that is drenched in tightly restrained anger. With The Toll, he’s got all that but also a tiredness that the past has caught up with him and the only way to survive is schemes within schemes and lackeys who might not be able to produce the goods when the time comes.

Annes Elwy is a wonder and I hope to see more of her in future projects. She shines in the Marge Gunderson role of the one cop straight enough and smart enough to put things together and to try and hold people to account for their crimes. She’s the lion’s share of the movie’s emotional scenes as she copes with the death of her father and the fallout from Toll Booth’s mess.

Will The Toll create a rush for Hollywood to make more Welsh movies? Probably not. But it’s well worth your time checking out if you’re a fan of Westerns, the Coens, or gorgeous scenery and violent crime.

What are your thoughts on The Toll? Is the world ready for a Welsh Western? Tell us in the comments below.

The Toll is in theaters now in Australia and New Zealand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2bgtf9a_4

Watch The Toll