Light House Film Club

Director: Shane Meadows

Cert: 12a

Time: 1hr 15 mins

Originally commissioned by Eurostar as a 20 minute short, to promote their London to Paris connection, Shane Meadows’ film grew into a full length study of adolescent friendship in multicultural London.  Which would explain the paucity of both narrative and dialogue.  

In essence the film charts the teenage friendship between Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) a runaway from Nottingham and Marek (Piotr Jagiello) who is sharing a flat with his father, a Polish construction worker at St Pancras Station.  They live in Somers Town, the area between Kings Cross and Euston and it is here that our two adolescents meet. The implausibility of that first meeting is compounded when Tomo persuades Marek to offer him refuge under his bed, thus setting the scene for one final question: how long will it be before Marek’s father finds out?   And that is really about it.

Bar the occasional cameo involving market trader Graham, delightfully played by Perry Benson, this film is at best a curiosity.  Amusing rather than funny, too short and improbable to possess real substance.    

Rating: 2/5
CA

Cert 18   103 mins

This is a strange film to pin down. Is it a story about a lonely young lad who, having been tormented at school, finds solace in the support of a group of skinheads ? Is it a story about a psychopathic bully who wrecks the kindred spirit of the skinheads when he returns from a three year stretch in prison ? Is it a comment on the evil of racism ? Or is it simply a view of Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980’s ? On the surface it is all of these, yet there is insufficient time to answer all these strands and as a result we are left feeling short changed.

At it’s heart it is the story of twelve year old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) who, befriended by a group of skinheads, discovers friendships, parties, first love, gang culture and racial hatred. To begin with the film is full of delightful humour until the loathsome Combo, (Stephen Graham) returns to the scene. From this point the atmosphere changes dramatically with the threat of violence ever present and it is this one eighty degree shift that makes the tale so disturbing.

Both Turgoose and Graham are entirely believable in their roles but the film contains a number of anomalies. Shaun’s mum is portrayed as a responsible loving mother yet how was it that she so readily allowed her son to join the skinhead gang, most of whom were much older than him ?  Shaun finds “love” with an older girl but given the age difference would the older girl really have pursued him ?  And where were the police ? I was also irritated by the overuse of music from the 80’s as a backdrop to moments of soul searching.

Stripped down the film succeeds as a study in how it takes just one bad apple to ruin things for the majority. Watching that process is uncomfortable but the broader insight into skinhead culture remained somewhat illusive.

Rating: 3/5

CA