The dead of night in east London. The streets are deserted, the cloistered colonnades of Canary Wharf, quiet. It's dark, of course, but the neon sheen of the tall towers provide a geometric, shimmering glow.
Into this frame of chrome and steel, enters an armed gang. Identical in appearance, otherworldly in their gas masks and seeing the Wharf circuits as a loop to slingshot them, and their ill-gotten gains, to freedom and riches.
In their wake, a driven cop, Max Lewinsky, willing to break the rules to bring down criminal mastermind Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong).
Smoking cartridges ejected from chambers bounce on the pavement, their deadly cargo thudding into walls and flesh.
"Pe-ow," the actors shout like nine-year-old cowboys. "Peow, peow." (Or an onomatopoeia of their choice).
The director has to remind them, again, not to make the noises. That'll be done in post-production.
In the meantime, the camera is recording their mouths acting as muzzles and it's distracting from the high-sheen action.
"You can't fire guns in and around Canary Wharf," actor Mark Strong tells The Wharf as we sit in a Soho hotel a week before the release of Welcome To The Punch, which sees much of its action take place in familiar locales.
"We had these specially made automatic weapons and the cartridges would come out but they would make no noise and there was no muzzle flare, that was put on later.
"That meant we kept running around going..." [he makes a "phut-phut" sound] "... and we kept on having to be told not to make the noise. If you're filming at night around that area it has to be very quiet."
And "filming at night around that area" was very much in the mind of Isle of Dogs director Eran Creevy as he began envisioning a palette for his slick cops and robbers thriller, a follow-up to his 2008 debut, the more realistic, down and dirty Shifty.
No London buses, red telephone boxes or bobbies' helmets adorn the film which aspires to emulate the Hong Kong shoot-out actioners or the simmering take-downs of Michael Mann.
Eran is open about his influences and inspirations.
"I wanted to make something from a film buff's point of view, a genre-geek, who grew up loving films like Bullit and conspiracy movies like Three Days of the Condor, The French Connection, Heat and Infernal Affairs; I have a massive love for Michael Mann, the Scott brothers and also Hong Kong cinema, especially the films of John Woo," said the ebullient director. (James McAvoy likens him to Danny Boyle in his infectious enthusiasm.)
"I live in east London and I was jogging around the island and through the city and I'd see these angles and shots and wondered 'why doesn't anyone shoot around here?' There is a futuristic Tokyo style weird clean streets with no litter.
"You can't enter Canary Wharf without being tested for gunpowder on your steering wheel. It's a crazy place and just the most beautiful metropolis."
Think east London and criminals and you're in the territory of Jack the Ripper or Guy Ritchie's lovable cockney canon and its imitators.
"This seemed very determined not to be your usual geezer, gangster, apples and pears crime film," McAvoy told The Wharf.
"I've seen a lot of those being really great as well but it's willingness not to rely on gritty British realism seemed refreshing.
"It felt quite fresh in terms of what Britain produces. It wasn't about the street, it's what's happening in the financial world and the political world that's what fuels the action, a high political conspiracy."
Strong said: "When we make films about London they tend to be caper comedies. It's fascinating that Eran's chosen to shoot at Canary Wharf, the palette of chrome and steel and give it a look which is more like a Heat or Casino, than what we're used to. "
"We don't make many action movies in this country is the simple reason is economics. Once you've made one in London you can't sell it in Europe or America because they're not interested."
The result is a story about two men - both damaged yet both noble - who face each other from different sides of the law and find a weird bond when they are threatened by forces bigger than both of them.
It is a story that initially was filled with arthouse moments, with complex personal histories, all shot and in the can when the director had a sudden change of heart.
Sometimes you have to be ruthless to make a film that moves with a bit of pace and I saw this movies as something that lives in the immediate, with these two men steam training towards one another.
So I cut a lot of the flashbacks and made them live in the present. I love that minimal style of film-making in the 70s where you don't feel you have to shoehorn in all this backstory about the characters.
The result is bullet fast and true.
Strong says: "The introduction of the script describes that [slickness] and when I met Eran he was unequivocal that's what he wanted to do, he wanted to make an aspirational movie.
I remember reading the script and wanting to find out what happened at the end and I thought what was very interesting that, under the guise of an action movie, there is also this story about guns themselves, about arming the police and the idea that the politicians might be using the issue of gun crime to get votes.
"There's a real possibility that it might cross borders that people see it as an international movie set in London rather than a London movie."
And it might not be the last time, Eran comes knocking on the doors of Canary Wharf Group. He said: "Once we'd production designed the movies so there were no red buses no red telephone boxes or parochial police cars or uniforms we'd created a parallel universe to London, almost a separate London. It borders on being a sci-fi movie.
Ridley Scott has never made a big movie in London and I wondered why that was. And I think we're a new generation of film maker that has grown up around a new London. You think of the London, Ridley would have known - grey and rainy with power cuts and the rubbish on the street - but the new metropolis has sprouted up into the air.
"There's going to be a new generation of film makers that set more films here. We have visual canvas to tell more aspirational, glossy style thrillers that wasn't there before."
I want to make a few more in that universe neon noir London and I won't try to justify it next time because I think the audience will just buy it."
GETTING STARTED
Director Eran Creevy is a bundle of nervous energy. Hard to imagine that this man who spills out words so fast and with such glee could be the focussed director described by his star James McAvoy.
McAvoy said: "The energy flies off him but he is so in possession of his craft.
"His skillset is fantastic, his understanding of the film business is full. That's why he managed to make a movie that looks like $20-$30million dollar movie for peanuts."
Ask how the film came about and the Isle of Dogs film-maker is off and running.
"After making Shifty, which was a more verite style of film, I wanted to make something that harks back to the archetypes of the grizzled cop, the mastermind super criminal but set it in a beautiful, modern London.
"I gave my first 180 page draft to my producers. They were expecting a kitchen sink drama and they were like, 'alright we see what you're trying to do'. We sat around for the next few years, crafting the screenplay and trying to make it work.
"We got the financing but James was off doing X-Men First Class and Mark was doing Green Lantern and John Carter.
"We needed an executive producer to give the film traction. We sent the screenplay to Ridley Scott (inset) and asked if he would help the film move forward.
"He loved Shifty and responded to this script. I flew out to LA to meet him and then he came on board and started making phone calls immediately.
"When someone like Ridley Scott comes on board it gives a certain cachet to the project so things started happening. What Ridley says goes.
"Ridley was making Prometheus at the time and his mind was there but he still found the time to watch the rushes every night.
"He left us to it but he became very involved in the edit, giving me the benefit of his advice."
Eran Creevy is not the only director who can pitch a Canary Wharf set thriller:
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