Small Time

i watched this film at college and at the time i had never heard of shane meadows. since i watched this film i have become a huge fan of all his films. this man is the future of british cinema and is what the industry has needed. the film itself is very realistic in parts and is cast very well too. the script is brilliant and i found it inspirational as a way to write down to earth comedies with drama added on to it. hopefully this film is the way that meadows wants to go on and it seems that it will be from films such as room for romeo brass and 24/7.

This is one of the most under-rated films of all time. It perfectly describes life on a council-estate in nineties

Britain and is down-right hilarious. The women in this film play spot-on parts, and the whole thing is perfectly acted with a tight script and brilliant lines. It is very conversation driven, very fast and if you are not clued in, may miss some of the humour

This small (and I use the word advisedly) has been reviewed on IMDb as though it were the second coming. Believe me it most definitely is not. Maybe Meadows intention was to display council estate stereotypes in an amateurish way but he certainly managed it in spades. The acting is not much above the level of Am-dram though it is not awful, the script such as it is seems improvised. I am sure that Meadows knows people like this but I do not. Why do the characters all wear really bad wigs?Why does every other word have to be F***? Why is there no story? It works on the level of an average student film but no better than that. After all I had heard and read about Shane Meadow's "genius" I was expecting so much more than was actually delivered. He fancies himself as Mike Leigh,perhaps, if so,he falls an awful long way short.

It's a good feeling when you 'discover' a great film. Especially one that due to the nature of it's budget and distribution, only you and a handful of other lucky people will ever see. Those were my thoughts after watching 'Small Time'. Costing only a couple of grand to make, and filmed on the streets of Nottingham, it follows the daily ups and downs, mainly downs, of a group of friends scraping a day-by-day living by ducking and diving and stealing anything to hand. The story leads to a grand finale, but it's the interaction and the banter between the characters that makes this film such a fun ride, they are totally believeable. The cast are mainly unknowns, but thats what probably makes the chemistry work. The music is good as well, two accoustic guitar tunes near the middle of the film are fantastic, they sum up totally how the characters are really feeling. Buy it and cherish it, Hollywood can keep all it's 'eye candy', this is proper film making.

This the 'diamond in the rough' in British cinema and will be given a new chance to shine later on this year with its re-release on DVD in February. The Limited distribution and rarity of VHS copies has meant this film is a cult classic within an already small group of fans. Made on a shoestring budget using friends and family as cast you could ask no more from this film. If it was only for better backing this would be at worst equal to Trainspotting as a definitive British film of the decade.The comedy is enough to sprout a TV series alone. This film is the christening effort of Britain most talented director who has gone on to prove with Romeo Brass and Dead Mans shoes that it wasn't a fluke.