Just what I expected

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A Disappointing Continuation

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I had heard a few reviews that this film was good and new and exiting so i went to see it and i was bored out of my skull. What is this excuse for a movie. I can't remember one point at which i was slightly interested and as for a rating out of 10 i give it a well earn't 2.

A gritty black & white film from the 25 year old director, Shane Meadows. Darcy, (played by Bob Hoskins in one of his better roles since MONA LISA & THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY), decides to take a bunch of restless teenagers off the streets and into the boxing ring. Then we go through the process of the bonding and the struggle as the boys come good. It begins as a realistic social drama and ends that way. I was glad to see that it didn't sell out.

"Twenty Four Seven" scores on cinematography and, in some cases, acting, but the story is inconsistent, predictable and unconvincing. Shane Meadows, the director, shows potential in his first feature movie, but overall he can't bring it together. The story is of a middle - aged man who starts a boxing club to get some youths off the street, and to give their dole - and - drugs centered lives a new purpose, but you can pretty much figure it out from there: new British cinema has never been so stale. We never understand what brings the characters together, what the kids see in their trainer (Alan Darcy, played by Bob Hoskins), why the young shopkeeper girl should be infatuated with Darcy (their relationship seems to be nothing more than an old man chasing a young bird), and we never even feel particularly sympathetic to the youngsters themselves -- they seem to be rather content collecting their dole and enjoying the easy life. I came away with the impression that the director did a social drama because he thought it would be the easiest thing to pull off, the result being a movie that has less grit and veracity than East Enders.

This wonderful film ironises the feel-good 'Rocky' tradition to critique an ideology - Thatcherism - that poisoned a nation still searching for the antidote. Like all Meadows films, this is great fun, with authentic-seeming performances matched by remarkable style which mixes stylised naturalism and sketch-like sequences. But looming over the larks is a depressing framing story - we know the plot ends up here. The unbearable tension is wondering how. The answer is heartbreaking, showing how the thatcher years brought Britain to the brink of fascism, where an underclass are either bullied or ignored to a point where the only means of expression is self-destructive violence. The 'poetic' voiceover is a mistake, especially for a director of Meadow's visual intelligence, but he'll get there. A great feature debut.