First time writer-director James Marquand's feature debut, the steel-tough crime thriller Dead Man's Cards, marks one of the venerable British actor Tom Bell's final onscreen roles prior to his death in 2006. The tale unfolds in the seedy Merseyside borough of Liverpool, where Tom Watts (James McMartin), a former pugilist forced to retire from an eye injury sustained in the ring, accepts a position as a bouncer at a dilapidated nightclub run by Billy the Cowboy (Bell). Tom's wife, upset by his new occupation and embarrassed by the discovery of her husband's sexual impotence, abandons him. Meanwhile, at work, Watts is immediately befriended and mentored by his co-bouncer, Paul (Paul Barber), who has become implicated with a shady element thanks to his ex-girlfriend's involvement with the cocaine pusher Romeo Brown (Andrew Simister), a slimy thug in hock to the gangster and cocaine boss Chongi (Mark Russell). The latter attempts to strongarm Paul and then Tom into joining his security firm; when both refuse, Chongi grows psychotically hostile and plans to rub out both men with the help of a trained assassin. He doesn't count, however, on Tom's decision to stop him in his tracks. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi