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Another potential problem that this movie could've had that might've impacted it's overall quality is that, in my opinion, modern metropolitan British crime thrillers tend to have an overly-stylised sensibility with more style over substance a-la Lock, stock and two smoking barrels (1998). This tends to be because of how London and most British cities, as a pop-culture reference point in modern films isn't used as a character in of itself unlike perhaps Moscow, New York or Paris thus resulting in London and other major British urban areas being represented more as nothing more than blank framing devices for the style and story of a big film. Naturally, this is a little different on television as many TV shows do indeed represent British cities with a little bit of character in of themselves (I.E. Doctor Who (1963-) or Spooks (2002-)). But when a film set in the swirling, multicultural miasma of British urban life is as precise, intimate and realistic as director Reg Traviss' Anti-social, its a kind of natural progression to show wherever in Britain (or any country really) you've set your film to have a good amount of character that the real-life place has whether it be the industrial hardiness of Hull, the political and social liberal character of Brighton or the metropolitan trading centre combined with hard-worn suburbia of London.
So what's the film about eh? Well in all honesty, out of all the film's I've reviewed over the last 4 or so years with exception to Interstellar (2013), Anti-social has probably the most straightforward plot. Naturally, there are character developments and plot twists throughout but the overall synopsis of the film is rather refreshingly straightforward and simple for a modern-set British urban life drama. Anyhow, based on a true story, Dee (Gregg Sulkin) is an anarchic street graffiti artist who aims his passions at critiquing the capitalist system in North and Central London while his older brother Marcus (Josh Myers) is a secretive smash & grab jewlery robber as part of his own motorcycle gang who is out to carve out a living in the city for himself and support Dee and their mother. On the way to the top, Marcus must dodge rival gangs, the law and the flaws of his own machinations while Dee is moving towards the high-life of alternative art while dodging the detritus and fallout of his brother's crimes. On top of this, Dee must not only help Marcus to look after their mother but also look after his own future and the livelihood of himself and his girlfriend Kirsten (Meghan Markle).
Now admittedly, this is a pretty simple plot as both Dee and Marcus are primarily driven towards their goals by carving out a rich livelihood for themselves while supporting their mum and yet neither of them initially are shown to be particularly in line with traditional ways of doing this and neither are particularly shown to be traditional good guys. On one hand, Sulkin portrays Dee as an impassioned individual driven not only by the passion of his own art but also by a slightly naive sense of survival against the fallout of any of his brother's misdeeds. On the other hand, Marcus performs shocking crimes and even assaults people in certain cases in order to ensure the prosperity of himself, his crew, his girlfriend and most of all his mum and brother. In essence, apart from any disparate villains scattered throughout the film who want to throw a spanner in the works of our protagonists, no one is fully shown as wholly bad or good. Even the particularly moralistic Dee and Kirsten are primarily shown as products of their environment with Kirsten being a do-gooding and sincere (slightly annoyingly so) people person as a result of her background as a photo model while Dee is an artistically driven pseudo-anarchist who rebels against the system but eschews any violence. Marcus is also quite brutish but by no means is an absolute bastard and actually comes to be one of the most sympathetic and realistic characters in the entire film. All in all, even with the slightly irritating Kirsten, all the characters are quite realistically portrayed and have believable motivations and feel more like humans that you could picture in hard-bitten urban society rather than cartoonish modern caricatures.
And admittedly the characters and writing are at the core of the glue that holds the film together and they are as good as a piping hot meatball mariana Subways after a morning of drinking but for me, the best part of the film is the acting particularly on the part of Sulkin and Myers who are definitely the best actors in the film. Again, this isn't to say that any of the other actors are not any good as the woman who plays Dee and Marcus's mum is a brilliantly sympathetic character representing single emigrated mothers in a film industry that leaves them somewhat under-represented. On top of this, the actors who portray the lads of Marcus' crew are ruthless criminals but ultimately likeable hard-men with relatable struggles and mannerisms. Ultimately there's very little about the characters, writing and acting I can really criticise. Even with extras, it seems as if Reg Traviss' writing and directing both served their purposes excellently as you're drawn into the struggles, attitudes and goals of each character that the film focuses on from one of Marcus' crew picking up a very sexy pedestrian Rochelle (Caroline Ford) or Dee dodging the law on a motorcycle to help out his brother and friends.
The soundtrack isn't really much of a noteworthy part of the film but ultimately serves the basic purpose to convey the basic emotion of a given scene. Fortunately for the sound department, the cinematography is excellent with many shots conveying more emotion and meaning of a certain scene than even the actor's acting or the excellent writing. Without a doubt, this is probably my favourite film for cinematography in terms of modern films since The Wrestler (2008, starring Mickey Rourke) but as ever, no film, not even this one can truly beat the legendary The Godfather (1972 starring Marlin Brando and Al Pacino). All of the aspects of the film work together towards propelling the film's story towards what should be a satisfying climax with almost-constant twists and turns that convey the very real danger of the struggle that Dee and Marcus are going through. If only the ending was any good.
Without a doubt, the only real part of the film I can actually feel comfortable criticising is the ending because it is absolute and utter shit. Before the credits roll, we are treated to an ending that has the potentiality to be interpreted as a possibly happy ending because of the implications for the three main characters of Dee, Kirsten and Marcus in the scene while leaving the film off on a morally and thematically ambiguous note with the general future of the characters clear but how it will exactly turn out as an interestingly ambiguous question left to the viewer's own thoughts without too much sequel-bait. Unfortunately, as the credits began to roll and I was treated to a 'true' and fully happy ending for Dee and Marcus, my jaw literally dropped at how shmaltzy and sickeningly sweet the future of our three main protagonists seemed to be. Now there is one point to acknowledge in that this film is based off of a true story and I guess I should grant the film a pardon on the part of that fact and if this is true to the source material that it's based off, Traviss does an admirable job of trying to convey the ending of the story. However, from a purely logical and cinematic standpoint the actual ending of the film in the credits is horribly themed and goes against virtually all of the rest of the film, in all honesty this is probably going to result in me mark down the film in terms of the plot and story to a considerable degree but even despite this, the film as a whole ultimately works.
In the end, the film is let down to a horrifying degree by the shitty ending but the rest of the film, especially the directing, writing and acting more than makes up for this with the majority of the film's points raising it up to the level that it may just be one of the best films of the year so far in a film that has The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars Episode VII and Jurassic World being released in it. Ultimately, the film has tiny flaws throughout and the ending is awful but I would without a doubt say that even despite all that, Anti-social is worth the price of admission.
Cinematography/camerawork: 9/10
Acting: 9/10
Story/plot: 6.5/10
Action/key moments: 10/10
Directing, lighting and music: 8/10
OVERALL SCORE: 42.5/50
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