London to Brighton (Paul Andrew Williams) Lorraine Stanley, Georgia Groome, Sam Spruell, Johnny Harris, Alexander Morton. Running time: 86 minutes . . . .

GANGSTER films, like war films, more often than not glamourise the ambiguous worlds they depict. Viewers automatically side with the heroic struggles of the characters . . . even if the worlds they occupy are sinister and their motives are corrupt.

But in Paul Andrew Williams' first-rate debut film, a gangster thriller about the twilight escape to Brighton of two young prostitutes who run like hunted rabbits after killing a crime boss, the men are like something you could scrape from the bottom of a primordial soup. They are seen as the architects of a violent universe in which young girls are forced onto the streets and into prostitution. The men are utterly contemptible.

The first time we see pimp Derek (Johnny Harris) is in a rare moment of affection. He is stroking his girlfriend's hair. "You are beautiful, " he tells her. He then instructs her to go in to a room and have sex with a man before pouring himself a bowl of cornflakes. This is the kind of casual brutalism at the heart of Williams' tale . . . a movie that is as much concerned with the social implications of homelessness, violence and prostitution, as it is the thrill of the chase. It is a powerful concoction, and the girls' plight is captured with a shocking and sympathetic accuracy. They are like the two styrofoam cups they discard on Brighton beach while on the run . . .

the camera hauntingly shows them being scattered across the promenade by the wind. They seem to share the same fate.

We first see them in a train station toilet at 3am. Kelly (Lorraine Stanley), a prostitute in her 20s has a massive black eye and a curl of dried blood on her lip. Joanne (Georgia Groom) is a young girl not even 12. They are in a panic to get out of London . . .

Kelly disappears for some quick street work to get money for the train, while Joanne, who we later learn has run away from home, eats chips in a cubicle. The first thing she wants to do upon hitting Brighton is go play on the beach.

Their pimp Derek is called to meet gangster Stuart Allen (a chilling performance by Sam Spruell . . . not unlike Paul Bettany's in Gangster No 1). Allen's father, gangland boss Duncan (Alexander Morton), had a predilection for young girls but now lies slain on his bedroom floor. What happened? The suspense is tightly wound. Allen gives Derek one day to locate the girls. As an aide memoire, he slices the pimp's leg with a blade.

The outcome for the girls seems a lot worse. They, meanwhile, win teddy bears from an arcade machine. "Mine's called Sarah.

That was my mum's name, " Joanne tells Kelly.

Director Williams carefully balances this sense of childishness with a series of mounting flashbacks that reveal the horrific adult reality of what has gone before. We see how Joanne was groomed by Kelly over a hot meal and the promise of £200 to sleep with the crime boss. "How old are you?" Derek asks her. "Nearly 12, " she says.

"Do you want something else? Ice cream?" he asks. Later, the horror of her ordeal is heard, but it is Kelly who feels the need to intervene while the camera remains a respectful distance behind the door.

The film operates in a murky, crepuscular light. Even the sea, which is briefly glimpsed as something redemptive, is a dull, washed-out affair. But the camera work is searing and intense. It focuses tightly on the extraordinary performances of the hunted girls . . . Lorraine Stanley, who wears a face that is bloated and grizzled, is never anything less than a woman who has seen the seven gates of hell and needs to find her salvation.

London to Brighton at times echoes British gangster films such as Get Carter. But the real inspiration lies more in the tough realism of the kitchen-sink drama . . . Williams' story is brave, challenging and unflinching, as well as bearing all the hallmarks of a top-notch British crime thriller.