Metro Manila

Slum movies are still a-go apparently. In the last ten years we've had the likes of Brazilian City of God, its sequel, and Elite Squad, Haiti had Ghosts Of Cite Soleil, South Africa turned up with Tsotsi, and Argentina gave us White Elephant. Like Cite Soleil, this Philippines entry has a director not indigenous to the region – UK writer-director Sean Ellis hoping to do a Gareth Evans perhaps – and he brings with him some familiar Western influences.

Oscar Ramirez (Macapagal) is an honest farmer working the fields in the hinterland around Manila. When the price of rice goes down, life in the country is unsustainable and Oscar and his family are driven into the city to make ends meet. However, police corruption and scams lighten them of what little money they had. Living in a slum, hope comes in the shape of a job as a security courier – a highly dangerous gig with roaming gangsters forever seeking a weakness in the guards' armoured cars. Oscar feels somewhat safe with superior Ong (Arcilla), but he might be more dangerous than the gangsters…

It's grim stuff – the Manila tourist board won't be thanking Sean Ellis any time soon, as the film depicts the city as lawless (police are rarely seen) with gangsters kidnapping girls from dirty streets seemingly at will. But it's left to the female owner of a strip club to deliver the withering, soul-destroying line: when she notes that Oscar's wife (Vega) is reluctant to play ball with the customers, she eyes Vega's six-year-old daughter: 'If you won't work here, she will.' Yes, grim.

So what are these familiar Western Influences? With Oscar roaming the Manila streets looking for a job, Metro Manila falls back on De Sica's 1948 classic Bicycle Thieves for touchstones and, with a naive trainee taught the ropes by a streetwise mentor who may have less-than-legal operations on the side, brings to mind Training Day. But despite these familiar touches, this drama knows where your heart is and chugs ever towards it.

While the misery Ellis heaps on the family is fairy tale-ish – everything happens except a hole in Oscar's shoe in the rain – and the ending is all too fantastic, the dogged determination on show is rousing stuff.