No.188 : The Rise (2012)

The Rise at the IMDb

Wikipedia tells me that this film was called ‘Wasteland’ for its North American release, which means that it is the first cross blog feature that we have watched. Both posters are attached but I’ll go with ‘The Rise’ as that was the title card on the version I watched on Film4.

It’s a British film so obviously it deals with drugs, crime, sink estates and respect. It would be nice to see some sci-fi or even a light heated period comedy, but bad slags are cheap so that’s what the British film industry will go with.

The film opens with a beaten up young man talking to Barry off ‘Auf Wiedersein Pet’. Barry has retrained as a police detective and he’s interviewing Harvey, a young man recently released from a year long stretch for dealing drugs. We go the familiar non-linear narrative route, so he tells Barry that it’s a long story and we soon dissolve to a flashback ‘six months before’…

Harvey is a chatty chap and provides a lot of narration about the drugs trade in his estate. He’s supposedly clean, but the local drug lord gets him sent down for a year so that  the police make their quota and the drug lord can be left in peace. After getting out, Harvey decides to get his own back on the drug lord with his crew of three friends, including Ramsay Bolton.

All three are struggling but soon take to Harvey’s plan to rob the drug lord of his takings and to invest the money in a hash café in Amsterdam - it’s good that they have worthy ambitions. He also has to reconnect with his nurse girlfriend, who’s a bit tiresome, and to train the gang so as to flesh out the plot so that enough time passes before we return to Barry in the interview room where all the clever twists are explained.

‘The Rise’ of the title is a working man’s club, and Harvey heard in prison that they have a safe with loads of cash in it. If this seems like a flimsy prospect for a job it also serves as the premise of the film, so keep quiet.

The gang hone their skills in a manner of elaborate an ultimately pointless ways before the heist is on. Will they get the cash and a new worthless life, or will the mild drug lord win the day?

If you liked ‘Oceans 11, 12 and 13’ you may like this, but be warned, it’s ‘Ocean’s 0.5’ at best. The heist is pretty straightforward and although it seemingly goes off the rails, there was never any doubt that a few planned wrong foots would save the day.

The characters were all wafer thin, with it being a mistake to hang the whole film on Harvey who was dull and unengaging. I didn’t care if he got the money or the girl and the whole enterprise was like a bunch of rats fighting over a rotten chicken leg.

Ramsay was a bit underused with this clunker coming out a year before he started in ‘Game of Thrones’. I’m guessing this effort was left off his CV.

There wasn’t much in the way of invention and I didn’t believe in the actions of Barry’s police detective who seemed to make a call on judgement rather than base his decision on the evidence. It looked like he only worked a day on the film, so he probably just wanted to get home.

You may find some form of entertainment hidden within this mess but to be honest I wasn’t engaged at all and the big revelations barely registered on the ‘So what’ meter. These criminals feeding off each other features do nothing for me, and if they were all sucked into a black hole after five minutes I’d have no complaints.

Overall a workmanlike British heist that failed to deliver the goods.

THE Tag Line : Get Your Bad Slags Here!  43%

No.185 : The Guvnors (2014)

The Guvnors at the IMDb

Another episode of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bad Slags’ now as we visit one of England’s finest sink estates and watch people carving each other up.

The film opens with two men confronting each other with one demanding the other shoots him. There’s the usual nonsense about street cred and respect before we dissolve to ‘1 month before’. Oh good, a non-linear narrative - this one takes about an hour to unwind so you could really just fast forward it and you wouldn’t miss much.

We meet Adam, a scarred youth of mixed race who runs the local estate. Not in a civic amenities sense, more that he’s in charge of the brawling and the drugs. Someone has blabbed to the cops so he carries out a public slashing with his soon to be signature move with a Stanley knife. He’s concerned that he isn’t getting the respect he deserves and hates hearing about ‘The Guvnors’ a group of football hooligans from 20 years ago.

Meanwhile city worker Mitch is having problems of his own. His workers are obsessed with street fight videos on Youtube and his own son is a right wee prick who bullies his classmates. It turns out that Mitch was the leader of the Guvnors but left 20 years ago when he fell in love.

Adam’s gang decide on flexing their muscles in the Guvnors’ old pub but end up getting handed their asses by retired gym owner Mickey, played by an unrecognisable David Essex. Essex enjoys a brief moment of viral video success but soon the feral youth are at his door and jumping on his head.

The police are ineffective - possibly because they have home made uniforms and possibly because they have recruited comedian Richard Blackwood for some unfathomable reason. It’s therefore up to the Guvnors to reclaim the streets and to avenge Essex. Will it all end in tears? You betcha!

This was a terrible offering but to be honest I did enjoy the ‘what cliché next’ game that the film offers throughout. I also enjoyed its aspirations, looking as it did to set what was essentially a squalid street brawl as something from a Greek Tragedy. There were efforts made with the sepia toned flashbacks being a nice touch, although ‘Wembley Stadium‘ looked like the local dog track. The eulogising of the Guvnors was a mistake as they just came across as a bunch of self satisfied thugs despite efforts to make them look like the less bad option for the estate.

The feral youth were no better. The lead villain Adam, who was played by someone out of Rizzle Kicks (apparently) was very poor. He’s slightly built and talked very slowly. I’m sure that was to give him some menace and gravitas but he just came across as a slow learner who’d won a competition to be in a film.

The big twist of a dynastic struggle was signalled from far off and the massed pitched battle finale made ‘Game of Thrones’ look like, well, Game of Thrones. The themes of trying to escape your past, destiny and fate were all touched upon, but soon set aside in favour of another whack over the head with a house brick.

I imagine the target audience for this film would lap up the sadistic violence and hooliganism but it made me just want a shower as the credits rolled. A guilty pleasure or just plain guilty of making a bunch of scumbags look like heroes? Second one.

The Tag Line : Complete With Anchorman Style Pitched Battle!  45%