This 80s set drama reinforces Shane Meadow's reputation as an actor's director and one that thank god, is actually interested enough in his indigenous culture not to take a cheque from a Hollywood studio and waste his talent making American genre movies. Danny Boyle take note. Paul Anderson, stay where you are.
This is a considered, exceptionally well acted story centred on a 12 year olds adoption by a gang of skinheads in the months after his Father's death in the Falklands. Initially it's all harmless enough, smashing sinks and wasting time. They listen to good music and smoke dope not a problem you may think, in fact I once worked for a man who essentially built a career on that. But things turn ugly when old gang member combo returns from prison, having had any vestige of racial tolerance buggered out of him. He's a proto-Nick Griffin, in the days before he opened an account with tie rack but with more visible tattoos, determined to fight the "war" against ethnic undesirables and no, that doesn't means Geordies (I had to check that too). The boy is drawn in by Combo's pitch, particularly the part about wasted solders liberating sheep in the Falklands, which strikes a simplistic note and before you can say "wasted youth" trouble ensues.
The period is vividly recreated, though Meadows can't resist having the greatest hits of the day playing on the radio as people walk down the street, and a cast who weren't even sperm and ovum in the real 1983, are superb and have a great career ahead of them, or rather would, were there an independent domestic industry to speak of. Mind you, Shane should be working for a while at least.
What impresses are the finely rendered details. Mass recruitment to the National Front is portrayed in relatively benign terms a cosseted meeting in a working men's club. There, then as now, a hatred of immigration and cultural diversity is rationalised as a rescue mission hauling Englishness back from its diluted and fractious state to something bound to a fictitious idyll represented by the likes of Churchill (who opposed all emancipating reforms throughout the first three decades of the 20th century and pioneered the use of chemical weapons and labour camps), war time working class solidarity and that kind of male sack contents. Then, again as now, the ringleaders pass themselves off as respectable patriots, suited and business like, trotting out the familiar mantra of welcoming the hard working immigrant but rejecting the rest ergo they're not racists at all. Obvious really! Having presented this pack of lies, Meadow's discredits it with equal verve. When combo storms into the hard working Pakistani shop owner's newsagent, threatens to kill him and steals his stock (because presumably working for it wasn't an option) there's little in the way of appreciation for the man's contribution to the economy. A simple "thank you for the annual 2 billion pound surplus in 2007 money you and your fellow immigrants contribute, subsidising benefit dependent ex-cons like myself" would have sufficed but no, its abuse a giant knife. As combo listens to Milk describe the simply pleasures of his family life a scene that's like watching someone sit on a bomb you know is about to explode, his decision to try and batter him to death in a jealous rage is a tacit acknowledgement of what actually lies at the heart of the future BNP's membership - simple envy and bitter resentment coupled with an idiots view of history.
When Meadow's explores the personal motivations for this hate his characters and the film as a whole have an air of authenticity, built on universally excellent and naturalistic performances. It's the attempt to tie the characters to the wider political and social context that strikes a false note.
Meadows locates the mutation of the skinhead movement from anarchist to racist by showing us footage of the Falkland's war and Thatcher. Combos been in prison for three and half years and it isn't a coincidence that his captivity dates from Thatcher's accession to government he's a symbolic globule of Thatcherite folly. Sending your armed forces to protect a hill and kill sheep Meadows suggests, proved a stark reminder of Britain's loss of status in the world and this, coupled with Maggie's systematic and ruthless destruction of the working class through mass employment and the atomising of society, which essentially ate like acid through traditional working class communities (which was always the point), was decisive in inflaming social tensions. This is a fair judgement of history but labouring the Falkland's as an inciting incident overstates its importance, when a more rigorous look at the domestic situation might have struck a stronger note. All of this suggests that while Meadow's is a vintage documenter of his own childhood experiences and has an gift for social realism, his credentials as a social historian are less secure.
Mind you, this may be all a misreading. Perhaps Meadows is suggesting Roland Rat is responsible the morning TV menace featuring in the opening archive footage, and who'd bet against it?
This is a considered, exceptionally well acted story centred on a 12 year olds adoption by a gang of skinheads in the months after his Father's death in the Falklands. Initially it's all harmless enough, smashing sinks and wasting time. They listen to good music and smoke dope not a problem you may think, in fact I once worked for a man who essentially built a career on that. But things turn ugly when old gang member combo returns from prison, having had any vestige of racial tolerance buggered out of him. He's a proto-Nick Griffin, in the days before he opened an account with tie rack but with more visible tattoos, determined to fight the "war" against ethnic undesirables and no, that doesn't means Geordies (I had to check that too). The boy is drawn in by Combo's pitch, particularly the part about wasted solders liberating sheep in the Falklands, which strikes a simplistic note and before you can say "wasted youth" trouble ensues.
The period is vividly recreated, though Meadows can't resist having the greatest hits of the day playing on the radio as people walk down the street, and a cast who weren't even sperm and ovum in the real 1983, are superb and have a great career ahead of them, or rather would, were there an independent domestic industry to speak of. Mind you, Shane should be working for a while at least.
What impresses are the finely rendered details. Mass recruitment to the National Front is portrayed in relatively benign terms a cosseted meeting in a working men's club. There, then as now, a hatred of immigration and cultural diversity is rationalised as a rescue mission hauling Englishness back from its diluted and fractious state to something bound to a fictitious idyll represented by the likes of Churchill (who opposed all emancipating reforms throughout the first three decades of the 20th century and pioneered the use of chemical weapons and labour camps), war time working class solidarity and that kind of male sack contents. Then, again as now, the ringleaders pass themselves off as respectable patriots, suited and business like, trotting out the familiar mantra of welcoming the hard working immigrant but rejecting the rest ergo they're not racists at all. Obvious really! Having presented this pack of lies, Meadow's discredits it with equal verve. When combo storms into the hard working Pakistani shop owner's newsagent, threatens to kill him and steals his stock (because presumably working for it wasn't an option) there's little in the way of appreciation for the man's contribution to the economy. A simple "thank you for the annual 2 billion pound surplus in 2007 money you and your fellow immigrants contribute, subsidising benefit dependent ex-cons like myself" would have sufficed but no, its abuse a giant knife. As combo listens to Milk describe the simply pleasures of his family life a scene that's like watching someone sit on a bomb you know is about to explode, his decision to try and batter him to death in a jealous rage is a tacit acknowledgement of what actually lies at the heart of the future BNP's membership - simple envy and bitter resentment coupled with an idiots view of history.
When Meadow's explores the personal motivations for this hate his characters and the film as a whole have an air of authenticity, built on universally excellent and naturalistic performances. It's the attempt to tie the characters to the wider political and social context that strikes a false note.
Meadows locates the mutation of the skinhead movement from anarchist to racist by showing us footage of the Falkland's war and Thatcher. Combos been in prison for three and half years and it isn't a coincidence that his captivity dates from Thatcher's accession to government he's a symbolic globule of Thatcherite folly. Sending your armed forces to protect a hill and kill sheep Meadows suggests, proved a stark reminder of Britain's loss of status in the world and this, coupled with Maggie's systematic and ruthless destruction of the working class through mass employment and the atomising of society, which essentially ate like acid through traditional working class communities (which was always the point), was decisive in inflaming social tensions. This is a fair judgement of history but labouring the Falkland's as an inciting incident overstates its importance, when a more rigorous look at the domestic situation might have struck a stronger note. All of this suggests that while Meadow's is a vintage documenter of his own childhood experiences and has an gift for social realism, his credentials as a social historian are less secure.
Mind you, this may be all a misreading. Perhaps Meadows is suggesting Roland Rat is responsible the morning TV menace featuring in the opening archive footage, and who'd bet against it?