Us and Them

An extra point earnt for two tracks by The Damned in the soundtrack. One or two low reviews by others almost stopped me watching this movie but as I'm a curious soul it spurned me on to watch it and find out myself and I'm glad I did. Sure the movie could have been better, twice as long but it didn't have to be, the point had already been made. The obscene, grotesque wealth gap of the social divide has been widening for many decades to the point where food banks are a lifestyle for those who have nothing, It's depressing stuff but it's real life for many and the injustice of it all is sickening. Is the movie believable, could it really happen?.., perhaps but hopefully not, it does however serve as a reminder that there's a limit a person can take when they feel they have nothing left to live for. It's a shame someone reviewed this movie as only being suitable for the white van man. I think it's a movie that tests a person's perception of reality and ignorance

"It's called class war for a reason," says Danny (Jack Roth). "There has to be victims on both sides."

Us and Them represents that class warfare with a mixture of Straw Dogs and Tarantino. You're right; it's a bloody business with Danny and his two working-class goons invading a Brit upper-class home to seek redress for the social injustices of the 1% taking from the blue-class stiffs for the upper crust's advantage.

But there's also ample humor in the invaders stumbling over themselves, Marx Bros. and Marx style, to pull off a mostly ill-conceived invasion (a BB gun??). Heading this gang that can't shoot straight is Roth's superb performance as the tough but conflicted Danny. It's an amusing and sardonic and poignant satire.

Given he's Tim Roth's son, not only can we expect a performance so gritty as to immediately reveal he has no acting school to weigh him down. (Also, he reminds me of the versatile Jack Plotnick, whose talents extend from acting to writing and directing as well.)

Besides Roth's presence are the stylized set-ups and performances perfected by Guy Ritchie and the sardonic asides of Quentin Tarantino's rough-hewn tough guys. Kudos to writer/director Joe Martin for catching Brit blue collar frustrations and the unfathomable gulf between the wealthy and the rest of the world's blokes.

Although Us and Them plays to the global divide between the haves and the have-nots, it goes much deeper to satirize the dangers of narrow extremism on either side of that divide.

Film school grads who want to do crime thrillers should look to Huston, Hitchcock and Don Siegel as much as they look to Ritchie and Tarantino. This is a triumph of slo-mo, shock cuts and lousy dialogue over genuinely intriguing content. A putative class-warfare underpining is the excuse for torture and mayhem. There is vistually no humor here at all, espceially for a theoretic "dark comedy". The acting is fairly good, I'd like to see the cast with a decent script and director. But this waste of time and talent ain't it.

Jack Roth is outstanding in this film and his performance, together with Tim Bentinck's carries this thriller. Some humorous one liners. Current films do not deal with the issues of the widening social divide and the disenfranchised so this film is refreshing albeit a bit raw. Overall I enjoyed it and it gave much food for thought.

Intriguing little scocio-polical movie that reminded me of the early works of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. It's a little brutal at times and quite funny at other's, and it is well acted. Not great but not terrible, it's okay for a Netflix selection.