The Grind

First of all ignore the negative reviews. There are technical issues with the film, but the storyline is fine! The film revolves around Bobby and his debts to an East End gangster, Dave, played by Jamie Foreman, currently in EastEnders as Derek Branning.

I felt Jamie Foreman came across well as the ruthless gangster who demands his debt is paid or else. Much in the liking of his father working along side the Krays brothers in the 60's.

The urban feel of the movie came across well in terms of the dialogue and the cinematography. Clearly the Director is a fan of Nil by Mouth. My favourite bit was the overdose on the dancefloor and the dance music suited it well. It could have been edited like a music video, but clearly the slow motion scenes were there to to tell a story and not a 3 minute pop video.

The story was clearly defined and the performances could have been better, especially from the co- lead,it was clear to see it was one of his first performances. It also had a very non-Hollywood ending which I wasn't expecting, I guess that was why Jamie Foreman wanted to play the role of Dave. Overall not a bad attempt at a first feature film and I look forward to see what the director does next!

After watching a poor film called Baseline I wanted to watch The Grind, as Baseline was an identical remake of The Grind, with the same story and characters as well as the same actors.

Since Baseline did so badly and did nothing for the careers of the cast and crew involved this would somewhat explain the negative reviews of The Grind.

At first you think The Grind is going to be just another gangster movie, but its much more and much better than that. The film follows two friends leading very different lives, one of Bobby and the other Vince. Both stories run along side each other until they meet and things start to go downhill for both characters.

There are violent situations for both characters, Vince dealing with the nightclub lifestyle and Bobby who gets threatened by Dave (played by Jamie Foreman) and gets beaten up by Tony, Dave's henchman. Bobby self-harming was tough to watch, but showed how desperate his situation was. With Phil (Danny John-Jules) his last friend to turn to for help the last 15 minutes are quite tense and lead to a climax for both of the main characters!

This is a low budget film and there are technical issues, but The Grind gives you an insight into British crime like no other. Director Rishi Opel lays on the violence thick and fast which may put off some viewers, so if you have a problem with brutality stay away, if not check it out. If your looking for something hardcore, this film pulls no punches.

Where Baseline tried The Grind survived!

I watched this film last night after watching EastEnders and I really enjoyed it. I've always been a fan of independent films and this is an intelligent film. It's idea is not complicated at all but smart at the same time and here lies its strength to me: The Idea. It's about the characters in a world of nightclubs and all the possible possibilities in our life that people create and the biggest (bad or good) changes they make. With all low budget films the acting is poor but I felt the lead was good - Gordon is one to watch for the future! Danny-John Jules plays the crafty Phil and Jamie Foreman was mesmerising as always and perhaps carried the film on his own at times. Catch it if you can!

I was looking forward to watching The Grind. Having been a fan of Jamie Foreman for years, and his fantastic turn in EastEnders over the last 6 months, this film looked interesting.

And was it any good? It was pretty good for a low budget film, to be fair. The story of a couple of mates, with one owing money to the other's boss is a familiar line. Martin Scorsese did this with Mean Streets nearly 30 years ago. But it works here in the Hackney setting.

Performances range from very good to poor. Stand outs are Foreman and Danny John-Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf)

Production values are good - visually it holds well, having gone for the gritty street realism of Nil By Mouth and Fish Tank. You can see the angle the Director had gone for in presenting a urban, street level feel.

The problems are fairly easy to point at. The female characters are underused. The Vince character isn't great, it would have been better to have focused solely on the main character Bobby. And some of the dance scenes go on a bit, so if you like trance, that's great, but otherwise...

Having said that, the pluses are there. The director has a strong visual sense, the locations are reminders of what many Londoners live through outside of the glare of the media. Jamie Foreman is at his most serious best, in fact his best performance in years. The story and dialogue is good.

So it's a bit hit and miss, but worth a watch, even just to see Danny John-Jules and Jamie Foreman in strong performances, and the evocative settings and visuals. And it's a whole lot better than some of the British dross out there.

OK first up. This film is clearly REALLY LOW BUDGET and I see from the credits of the director it's his first film and was made from a previous short film he made some years before. So going from a short to a feature is clearly a MASSIVE step up and over all I felt he did a pretty good job all being considered. Clearly having a bigger budget would have helped this film as they could have added more action, bigger named actors and better locations/extras, sound track and stunts etc. The DP has done a great job on this as it really helped the film feel edgy, dirty and the low budget feel really helped make it feel like a nasty bleak world! We are all going to Hoxton/Dalston darling!" this film ain't! :-) I personally thought the casting of Jamie Foreman was a master stroke as His dad used to be a real Hackney gangster and was in fact a hit man for the Krays for some years and KILLED A FAIR FEW PEOPLE FOR THEM. Foreman therefore lent the film a greater feel of realism than going for just another east end bad guy boss like other crime films have done. It was also a interesting part for Danny John Jules and bar his deleted extras scene in "Lock Stock" I haven't really seen him play that kind of role before or anything of that kind of low budget nature so I guess he and Foreman must have really seen something different in the realness of the script like for example Bobbie owing Foreman only £10k rather than say £250k which is more of a movie sum of money to kill someone over. In fact the fact he beat him to death himself for such a small sum of money was really shocking for me but again set up this kind of harsh and bleak, true London world. The movie does have it's flaws though it has to be said! There are far too many roles in the film (the cast seems pretty massive), there are clearly not enough extras in the night club which either means it was a real dive of a club or the film just didn't have enough money to really fill out the club scenes properly as they must have all cost money. A bit of both I would have thought. The trance music score wasn't really to my tast either but then I'm no trance fan so that's hard to judge the movie down for that one. Also the club scenes should have been edited a bit more as they did go on a bit. All in all I felt the director did a very good job on his first movie with room for improvement moving forward for future films. The Grind was a very gritty, real and hard depiction of a quickly changing part of the east end. This movie deserves it's place in the collection of gritty realistic low budget crime films. A pretty good job!