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Twenty8k is a British
crime thriller, by that I mean it's a film about youth's in London
who are doing bad things. It's also a detective story, a political
thriller, conspiracy film and to be honest it was very very
predictable. What happened to the days of the British Crime thriller,
I'm talking Get Carter, Long Good Friday, The fuckin' Sweeney (not
that Nick Love thing), yeah I know they're all made in the 70s and
80s but fuck, that was a good time to be making crime movies, these
days unless it's got some 17 year old rapper, some wannabe gangsters
from a rough estate and a soundtrack made up entirely of people
babbling on about how hard it is to be alive right now and how
they're gonna get busted for selling guns to survive, makes me
seriously want to put my fist through my television but as I can't
afford a new one, I have to refrain from doing that. For some reason
here in the U.K, our film business seems to consist of films made
about kids with knives or unfunny rom-coms that try their hardest to
rip of successful American comedies. Well that's enough of that rant,
lets look at TWENTY8K.
TWENTY8K follows Deeva,
a Paris based fashion executive who is called home to the U.K after
her brother, Vipon, is arrested for murder. Vipon is a young up and
coming DJ and a member of the Twenty8K gang that rules a street in
London. Vipon is also inlove with Sally, a young hooker who has been
secretly taping politicians who have been paying her for sex. Then
there's the leader of the gang, a guy who thinks he's Scarface but is
actually more like Rufio from Hook, all talk but still just a kid.
They all have Tattoos and talk like they're off a Plan B record. Then
there's a youth worker who used to be part of the Twety8k gang but
now works at trying to stop them, oh he's also Deeva's ex-boyfriend
(there's a twist here children, can we guess what it is?) and is in
no way a suspect in the murder, no way in hell, this guy is a yoof
worker. There's corrupt cops, politicians and something about a
shooting on a high street, presumably the same street run by the
Twenty8K. Well Deeva wants too clear her brother's name and uncover
the truth behind the murder and within ten seconds she's turned into
Philip Marlow. Take away her Iphone and she would be fucked. Well
with Deeva on the case (a fashion executive), she uncovers the truth
and a certain secret about the Yoof worker.
Let me get one thing
straight if you haven't already guessed it, Twenty8K is a rubbish
film. It's just another film in a long list of London based gang
films that adds nothing new to an already dead and boring genre. I
can think of two films in this weird ass sub genre of films that have
made me think that there was potential, those two films being The
Veteran that sadly becomes a bit silly in the last 15 minutes and
Harry Brown, which was actually a very well made film and showed that
Michael Caine is still a bad ass at the age of 70 something, this
film did nothing for me. The saddest thing about the film is that it
was written by Paul Abbot who wrote the incredible TV show Hit And
Miss and the feature film version of State Of Play. It's like he ran
out of ideas and just watched a bunch of U.K youth movies and thought
it would be a good idea to mix Shank with State Of Play, Mr. Abbot
while I understand your intentions, your final product is less than
stellar, but I can't put all the blame on Abbot as he co-wrote this
with Jimmy Dowdell who has written episodes of CH4's Shameless, Guys
what were you thinking?
The directors (two
middle aged white dudes) made this film look cheap, the direction is
like an episode of Grange Hill and some stylish shots of London do
not make up for poor directing, there are more ITV drama's that look
more professional than this. At best it looks like a below average
one off TV drama. Yeah I know the argument will be go and make a film
if you think you can do it better, well no i'm not going to make a
movie because a) I can't afford it and b) this is just an opinion.
When you look at my previous reviews you will see that I do indeed
love movies that are considered pieces of shit such as Tank Girl,
which I gave 5 stars to, this just an opinion, I am an armchair
critic and I like what I do.
Well i'm going to end
this review like this.
If you are within the
age range of 12-18 then you may get something out of this, but anyone
older may find Twenty8K a bit of a bore. It's unrealistic, boring,
very predictable and not very well made. I didn't like it, but others
may. One star only...
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