A lot of young lads have their fair share of monkey shines growing up, though perhaps nothing quite on this scale. An 11 year old future psychopath somehow convinces his naive buddy to pretend to stab him outside a football stadium during a packed match, while dropping a fake blood pack to make it look real. Only, the mad one forces his gentler friend to push the knife in for real, so it quickly ceases to become a game, especially when it emerges the 'victim' is planning to set up his mate as some kind of junior Norman Bates. With friends like this, who needs enemies, eh?
In the meantime, while the weird one wanders around the hospital spreading all kinds of false rumours, the innocent fugitive is taken under the wing of a group of Saturday night revellers, including a particularly disturbed individual who forces the kid to join him on a little crime spree including joyriding and ordering food then running off without paying. As you can see, this isn't a film full of what could be classed as 'role models'.
Neither is it a brilliant example of character writing or plotting as one random incident follows another, with no real attempt to tie them together into a cohesive whole. That I suppose, it part of it's appeal... despite being rough around the edges, there's little here which is predictable or expected, and the outrageous goings-on are never dull. An early effort for future acclaimed filmmakers Stephen Frears and Stephen Poliakoff, the potential shines through. Also, it proves that police today were just as useless as they were back then... 6/10
