Friday, July 04, 2008

Did anyone see Fallout last night?

Knife crime is becoming an increasingly pertinent problem in the UK nowadays, particularly in London, where 17 young people have died from knife-related incidents alone. As part of Channel 4’s Disarming Britain season, last night showed “Fallout”, a drama following the act of a knife crime by some teenagers and the fallout of it.

What I thought was good about it
- The handheld camera, which contributed to the gritty feel of the show.
- The acting, which was completely intense and authentic.
- The scene with the “you will know when I’m getting vexed” line. The repetition of “vex” made me think of Gladiator. Unintentionally amusing, but never mind.
- The ending. Downbeat, depressing, and completely the opposite of how things would end in a Hollywood film with no justice served, but realistic.
- The scene between the deceased boy’s mother, and Shanice, the girl who was in part responsible for his death towards the end. Whilst I absolutely wanted to throttle Shanice, it was very, very sad and evoked a tear from me.
- Lennie James’ performance as the tough black cop Joe. A brooding, serious and terrifying performance, even if his character stared at Shanice far more than was normal in a film that was attempting to tackle knife crime, not Lolitas.

What I thought was bad about it:
- The two females in it. I think the writers were trying to paint Shanice (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the pretty one, as the tart-with-a-heart from Aylesbury Estate, but that didn’t wash with me. To me, she was just whore who was responsible for ending the life a good lad because he wasn’t into her like everyone else was. And the other girl, nicknamed Troll– don’t get me started on her. Whiny bitch.
-The good cop/bad cop routine between rigid, rule-following white policeman and tough but well-meaning black policeman. Cliche, cliche, cliche.
- The quantity of shitbags in the film. FFS. Not one repented for what they'd done.
- Characterising the boy that had died - Kwame - as different - intelligent, deep, and on his way out. It was a bit pat for me.

Overall, I thought it was a powerful drama, but with too many flaws and a muddled sense of what it wanted to achieve to be truly great. Your thoughts?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eh... I saw the first 10 minutes of this out of curiosity after BB but then switched off; it was boring.

Jen out. Mwahaha.

Anonymous said...

Sara's a stunner, she looks like Angelina and also a bit like Effy from Skins.

Belinda and Bex... agh

Anonymous said...

I watched it on Thursday night. I agree with you that the acting was good but everything else was crap, especially stereotyping all of the black teenagers. Snakes on a Plane was a better depiction of black people than this "docudrama"

Emma said...

I see what you mean! I didn’t think she looked 100% like Angelina, there is def. a bit of Effy in her.

Scared of A-level results, Martin. *sad*