TwentyFourSeven

TwentyFourSeven is a pleasing film from director Shane Meadows who also acted and co-wrote the screenplay. Rather sensibly for a first-time endeavour, he's opted for a low-key work rather than the flashy fragmented works of other young debutantes (Guy Ritchie please take note).

The story is alarmingly simple and is thus: Alan Darcy (Bob Hoskins, excellent) helps out wayward youths in a harsh Northern town by running a boxing club. And that, basically, is it. The film perhaps plays on too narrow a canvass and it's "life is harsh" rhetoric can be mildly overstated. Witness the habitual drug user who turns up to a bout with the largest spliff in history. This guy does drugs, and in case you don't get the point, here's a telescopic joint that would bankrupt Columbia. Bruce Jones' wife-beater can also be a little one-dimensional, saved only by the actors' charm. Yet the fact that the screenplay is so modest in it's ambitions helps it immensely. A lesser talent would have thrown everything at the screen for his first full-length work, yet Meadows tells his tale and tells it well.

Dialogue that could veer towards slight pretention is saved by the wonderful Hoskins, while the real triumph is the black and white filming. This isn't the Schindler's List type of black and white; a dull grey that looks like a normal film with the colour control on your TV turned down. This is a dark, grimy black and white that takes away any contemporary restraints. Particularly notable are the scenes set against the woods and train car, and the pace they evoke. This is a film that doesn't drag but takes it's time with precision. It will entertain you and doesn't need to rush it. Impressive.

I've been waiting a while for this to reach our screens, and though anticipation undoubtedly adds flavour, I was favourably impressed. Meadows has been billed as Britain's new white hope and 'Twentyfourseven' promises good things for the future. It may not have the (attempted) dramatic scope of a film like 'the Boxer', which in plot terms it resembles, but Meadows covers the ground efficiently and without histrionics in a free-flowing cinematic style that simultaneously displays a tensile strength. Meadows' eye is good (the crane shot outside the club at a crucial point towards the end shows that he can do formal, too) but his ear is even better. The exchanges and insults between the two gangs and among themselves, even when not fully comprehended by my kiwi ear, make similar lines from 'Good Will Hunting' and other popular films sound contrived. The freshness of 'Twentyfourseven' may be supported by control and critical judgement, but it is, all the same, real.

"Twentyfourseven" is not an easy movie to watch, actually I found it quite difficult, but well worth it. The story chronicles one man's attempt to bring meaning and purpose to a group of working-class youths in a grimy English city. Bob Hoskins plays Alan Darcy a sweet, well-meaning man trying to do good against insurmountable odds. Shot in black-and-white the visual despair of the public housing projects and the almost bombed-out urban landscape highlights the dark mood of the film. Why should these unemployed young men care about Darcy's dream? They're on the dole and have their alcohol, drugs and football. Why bother? This is Darcy's challenge.

The excellent ensemble cast brings life to the rather loose, not-so-good script. But the actors pull it off admirably and provide us with a good, although disturbing film. Definitely not Saturday-night-lite, rent-a-video with the family stuff, but still very good. If you're in the mood.

This film was one I had heard of, thought I'd like to see, but simply missed. When it came on pay-tv I made a point of taping it and I'm glad I did. In an extremely simple but effective way this film transports the viewer to a seedy english working class neighbourhood with its local 'colour' and crushing gloom, hopelessness and misery. A fair short film, in some respects I felt the tale unfinished - little by way of background, the heart of the film was the training and first competition which doesn't run too long, then - almost before you know it - its all over. Still, definitely worth a watch for some fine acting, interesting (though not overly original) plot, and fine but simple film-making. (ps although I can understand the use of b/w I'm not really convinced it was all that necessary or effective). My vote 7/10

In a deprived area of Nottingham, young men hang around on the streets in small groups, unable or unwilling to find anything beyond their very immediate horizon to aspire to. The result is petty crime, educational underachievement, drug use and endless poverty. Alan Darcy is a local himself but old enough to remember the old days, where it wasn't all like this and back when a local boxing club helped to engage the youth and engender pride in themselves and their surroundings. With sponsorship from a local "businessman", Darcy sets up the club and uses his natural charisma to win over a handful of members bit by bit. However with negativity engrained throughout the community, the fight to aspire is not an easy one.

Watching Shane Meadow's most recent film (This is England) reminded me what a talent we currently have working within British cinema and it made me revisit a few of his early films that have been screened recently as part of the BBC's summer of British film. On paper this could be a typical sports movie with a group of young men finding fulfilment and meaning through sport. However this is not Hollywood, it is Nottingham and as such Meadow's opens the film with the end – a simple scenes that sets the entire film as flashback and tells us from the very start that what we are about to watch has pretty much failed. With this knowledge in the back of our minds as we then watch the rest of the film, sentiment is kept at bay.

Of course the delivery generally helps this because it is gritty and convincing. The lack of hope and opportunity that forms the driver for the narrative is always present whether it is the characters or the bleak black and white cinematography and it is a real strength of the piece that it manages to do this while still retaining a sliver of hope throughout. It is hard for me to describe because I'm not that good a writer, but the mix of this comes off really well without coming over easy or simplistic. The conclusion is the closest that it comes to offering a "happy ending" but for me I took that more as people are people (hence we see mostly people individually or in small groups being OK) and that the situation is usually what makes the wider groups lack hope and aspiration.

Maybe this idea appeals to my liberal politics and thus I engaged with the film more, however someone from the right could also view the film as feel affirmed by the idea that you cannot help such people because they don't want to be helped. I liked the film because it can be seen in both ways and that it isn't as black and white as the pictures – just like reality there is an element of truth from all views. Although it all comes to a dramatic head, Meadows and Fraser do well to feed in the negativity throughout in the form of certain characters and situations, while also bringing others out of themselves as Darcy manages to connect them to something. Accordingly the end of the film is also a mix of failure and success. I found it touching throughout and, although it did sometimes sail close to melodrama it never really went there and came across as realistic and convincing throughout.

The cast are a big part of making this aspect of the script work. Hoskins leads the cast well with a strong performance. He does have the charisma his character needs but he also lets the strain show while also handling his own character's aspirations and frustrations well. Jones perhaps has a quite simplistic character (ie he serves a specific purpose within the narrative) but he deals with it well. The young cast are quite impressive with everyone coming off natural and convincing – something that Meadows regularly seems to be able to get from his actors. Nussbaum, Brady, Badland, Collins, Hand, Campbell and others all look like they aren't really acting for the most part, which I consider a good thing within this context. It is also worth mentioning that the soundtrack also comes over like the "12th man" of the team that is this film; plenty of great tracks and almost all of them really well used and fitted in with the film.

Overall then, an impressive feature debut from Meadows and is all the better given we are not looking back at it as "his one good moment before burning out"; conversely the strengths he showed here he has kept and built on – even if the total product has not always been as good as it was here. Gritty and realistic, this film delivers hope and depression, misery and comedy, violence and humanity and remains true to its characters and environment. It is an excellent film and criminally under-seen.