Truly Dreadful Film

the audience applauded

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

When they left school, six friends were full of hope and dreams of success. Four years later they are still trying but mostly their lives are still on the same track – with their same partners and playing in the same experimental jazzy funk combo. However when Charlie gets involved in an accident it sends shockwaves through an already troubled group; Bean goes off the rails when he sees his girlfriend with another man, becoming hooked on drugs and dealing; Rix get his girlfriend Sherry pregnant and has to try and hold the band together as Sam wants to drop the jazz aspect and bring in a new vocalist to become more commercial.Opening with the same actors supposedly playing 16/18 year olds, this film quickly moves onto four years later where, aside from school uniform, they look exactly the same – however this jump in creditability is the least of your worries in a film that never stops adding to the plot in an effort to replace real emotion with pace. The story introduces to a collection of characters quite quickly and seems to have aimed to be realistic of life for young people in London but, as the film goes on, the base premise is opened up as each character has all manner of tragedy happen to them resulting in the film feeling far too busy as it spins towards a rather overblown conclusion. It's a shame because the people are quite interesting at the start but the script doesn't allow them to really develop as real people and so puts them in extreme lives and covers for the material's inability to really grip and involve by simply having it move very fast and always having something happen on screen. It is pacy enough to keep watching though and I'll say this for it – I was never bored, but I also never really cared for the people or found myself involved in these lives.The direction is pretty good though, using London quite well without becoming a tourist trade film. The atmosphere of lost lives is well put across and it keeps a downbeat tone even as the plot twists become decreasingly like any life I've ever lived! The music is pretty good though even if it will probably have dated pretty badly in about ten years time – personally I quite liked the jazzy sort of jungle stuff and I like the vocalist even if she did turn it very poppy (which was the point I suppose).The cast find themselves with good basic characters and are left with the challenge to keep them real people while their lives become increasingly exaggerated. Newman does well with his loss and makes it believable even if he has little time to put complex feelings across. Shepard is OK but his character is quite bland and it shows in his performance. I did feel a bit sorry for Waters, whose character goes the farthest and becomes rather silly and OTT by the end of the film. Ejiofor is pretty good and works well with a lot more time and dialogue than he was allowed in Love Actually (hasn't he put on a lot of weight by the way!) but it's a shame the same isn't offered to Smith who is only given a bump to carry around and little else.Overall this is a reasonable British film but hardly any great shakes. It has pace and energy and it has tried to create an ensemble drama featuring 'real' lives but the emotion and drama is not as real as it thinks and involving stories are replaced by exaggeration as the film is unable to stop adding to it's drama. If it had been better written it could have rested on smaller events but as it isn't, it needs to keep moving for fear of stalling. In this regard it does keep moving and is never really boring but it isn't that good a film as a result but should please those who are easily won over by soapy dramas as the like.

A group of youths in London, an accident, a hold up, drugs and life in the big city. Could have been dark, depressing and tokenistic but it WASN'T. Mirren's fully drawn characters and fantastic undercutting of sentiment (a very british way) made this film one of the best (unsung) british movies I've seen in ages. It's honest, informed and has such heart, no one could fail to be engaged.I got it out on video this weekend, sadly didn't see it on the big screen. Why was that? Where was the publicity and why haven't we seen more from this guy??Get it out and enjoy.

Here is another example of how too often the real gems go by unnoticed...this film rocks! I was lucky enough to catch it on British Airways coming back from the UK and even in its edited form was quite moved. It's one of those films that holds you throughout, you really get dragged into the fast-paced, tense, sensual and moving dynamics of this young group of friends. But one of the real highlights is the sound track! Is this available in the UK? If not are bootlegs available?? (can someone please let me know?) The sound of the group was just amazing. One of my favorites from 1999. Definitely check it out if you can.

We went to see this movie as a last resort not expecting it to be that good, we was shocked to find that the movie was Very good, The Story, Acting and Overall Production was Fantastic, I've Recommended this Film to Friends and Family and Will continue to do so.