British-Iranian filmmaker Babak Anvari burst onto the scene in 2016 along with his debut function movie Below The Shadow, a delicate, politically astute supernatural chiller that gained the writer-director a BAFTA for Excellent Debut. I Got here By, his third movie, has few of the subtleties of that calling card, however hints of that early promise are sometimes scattered all through.

It’s one thing of a genre-hopper. The movie begins as a reasonably crass approximation of city youth tradition: a few hoodies participating in high-risk civil disobedience; tech-savvy, politically radical vandals sticking a center finger as much as the institution by breaking into costly properties and leaving a signature tag. Toby (George MacKay) is the rebellious Robin Hood kind — a careless early scene reveals him actually stealing from the wealthy to present to the poor — whereas his extra sensible-minded partner-in-crime, Jay (Percelle Ascott), is within the household means, and seeking to get out of the sport.

Then, when Toby will get swept up into one thing greater than he bargained for, the movie switches right into a form of missing-person police procedural — earlier than lastly selecting a house-of-horrors psychological thriller. The shake-up between kinds and abrupt change in character views (there are basically three leads, who take it in turns for every act) would possibly really feel uneven, nevertheless it weirdly works, conserving proceedings stunning and interesting simply when curiosity threatens to sag.

Most attention-grabbing of all is the person behind that horror, Sir Hector Blake, performed in a gloriously against-type position by Hugh Bonneville. Weaponising the plummy upper-class accent that has delighted Downton followers for years, Bonneville is straightforwardly wonderful on villain duties. Taking part in a supposedly saintly man of the regulation with some darkish secrets and techniques in his basement, he maintains a facade of public-school politeness, whereas permitting flashes of really unhinged histrionics. The teachings about institution figures with colonial pasts are, once more, clumsily made, however Bonneville’s well-pitched efficiency retains it on observe.

There are some unusual decisions elsewhere. The digicam lingers on characters watching Rick And Morty and The Nice British Bake Off far longer than it must, making us marvel if there’s some deeper which means to be inferred from Paul Hollywood’s baking suggestions. The cinematography is oddly flat. George MacKay’s hair adjustments color at the very least as soon as, for unknown causes. But when it feels a bit messy, the jumble of concepts coalesces right into a reasonably satisfying ultimate meal, a scathing broadside of the British class system, wrapped right into a multi-genre mash-up.