This little gritty film, written and directed by Eran Creevy, is being cleverly marketed for release in the US by Breaking Glass Pictures as a prescription form for drugs and nothing could be more appropriate for a film that examines the intricate manner drugs such as cocaine, crack, etc have on little sectors of England: here, instead of London, the story is set in a seedy East London/Essex border country where drugs seem to affect everyone in one way or the other.
A bright, well-schooled Muslim lad named Shifty (Riz Ahmed, in a very fine performance) who lives with his straight mature brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra) who only tries to keep his Muslim family together. Shifty is a young crack cocaine dealer with a regular clientèle - a addicted building site worker Trevor (Jay Simpson) married to a disillusioned wife (who thought he had given up drugs) with three kids, a crack smoking old lady Valerie (Francesca Annis) in her familiar looking flat, framed photograph of a daughter, grand daughter on the mantle. etc. Shifty sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend Chris (Daniel Mays) returns home after an absence of several years due to a dark secret that we only learn about at film's end. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer Glen (Jason Flemyng) intent on setting him up for a big fall. As his long time friend Chris, confronts the dark past he left behind him (nightmares abound!), Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he's hurtling towards. And oddly it is the presence of Chris that finally, after years of remorse over a bad decision, is there for Shifty.
Much of what makes this little film work so well is the writer/director's decision to make this a series of character studies than a series of mayhem scenes. Yes, there are brutal scenes that represent the drug world as it functions on all levels, but in the final analysis it is the story of the people reacting to the drug culture - dealers, family, druggies, victims, friends, and children of all these. It is a very potent little film. The only disadvantage is that there (at this time) are no subtitles, and the various forms of English accents are at times not understandable. This is a powerful little film that delves more deeply than other films about the drug culture and its impact on society.
Grady Harp,
A bright, well-schooled Muslim lad named Shifty (Riz Ahmed, in a very fine performance) who lives with his straight mature brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra) who only tries to keep his Muslim family together. Shifty is a young crack cocaine dealer with a regular clientèle - a addicted building site worker Trevor (Jay Simpson) married to a disillusioned wife (who thought he had given up drugs) with three kids, a crack smoking old lady Valerie (Francesca Annis) in her familiar looking flat, framed photograph of a daughter, grand daughter on the mantle. etc. Shifty sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend Chris (Daniel Mays) returns home after an absence of several years due to a dark secret that we only learn about at film's end. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer Glen (Jason Flemyng) intent on setting him up for a big fall. As his long time friend Chris, confronts the dark past he left behind him (nightmares abound!), Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he's hurtling towards. And oddly it is the presence of Chris that finally, after years of remorse over a bad decision, is there for Shifty.
Much of what makes this little film work so well is the writer/director's decision to make this a series of character studies than a series of mayhem scenes. Yes, there are brutal scenes that represent the drug world as it functions on all levels, but in the final analysis it is the story of the people reacting to the drug culture - dealers, family, druggies, victims, friends, and children of all these. It is a very potent little film. The only disadvantage is that there (at this time) are no subtitles, and the various forms of English accents are at times not understandable. This is a powerful little film that delves more deeply than other films about the drug culture and its impact on society.
Grady Harp,