moonkodi

Good cast. A lot of life to the characters. A lot of charcaters have some kind of hang up or setup to be resolved. They don'#39;t all get resolved but the important stuff does. I like how it dealt with the nature of violence. Don'#39;t know why it'#39;s black and white. Maybe tries to be too gritty.

TheStretchedElf

Gritty and witty in just the right ways. The writing, directing and artistic composition is triumphant, but that'#39;s what you expect from Meadows: he consistently delivers. In this hard, working-class setting three subplots make up the narrative: Darcy'#39;s brainchild the 101 Boxing Club, designed to keep the youngsters off the street and out of trouble; Tim'#39;s volatile and violent homelife, always threatening to erupt and confront us; and Darcy'#39;s search for purpose, meaning and romance in an otherwise directionless life. These flowing tributaries converge into a relentless river, sweeping characters along in a turn of events that is brutal and dark in typical Meadows style. As with much of his material Meadows mostly uses little known (or totally unknown) actors and extracts a breathtakingly mature performance from them. Without taking anything away from Hoskins (Darcy), Jones (Tim'#39;s Dad) and Harper (Ronny), who all put in the solid performances we expect from their calibre, it is the younger, unknown cast members who are a real joy to watch, providing a perfect balance of bravado and buffoonery, of hardness and humour, arrogance and abjection, giving the film a credibility and authenticity that belies their inexperience.