100 Streets (2016)

Though not as bad as some of the reviews suggest, 100 Streets is a multi stranded ensemble piece about interconnected lives in modern, metropolitan London that ultimately fails to deliver on its promises.

Idris Elba stars as a former England international Rugby Union captain whose life post-retirement hasn't quite panned out the way he'd imagined. Unfit, and spiralling in a malaise of drugs, drink, depression and one night stands, he's separated from his wife, a former actress played by Gemma Arterton, and their two young children. Arterton's being eyed up by an old friend and colleague, played by Tom Cullen, as she attempts to step back into acting with a little help from her old mentor, played by Ken Stott. Stott meanwhile has taken a young offender (Franz Drameh) under his wing, seeing the potential in this young man who desperately wants to escape the world of drug dealing on corners for the local Mr Big. Meanwhile, a middle-aged couple (Charlie Creed-Miles and Kierston Wareing) are considering adoption when a personal tragedy strikes that could change their lives forever.

100 Streets feels like the kind of multi-stranded London set drama that would have graced our TV screens back in the late '90s - and I don't mean that as a criticism, I actually can't help but think a mini-series would have been the better format, allowing the many plot strands the chance to breathe and grow, and develop more plausibly than a mere 90 minute feature can offer. I also can't help but think someone was busy with the scissors in the cutting room, a concern that has grown when I saw a cast list on TMDB that bears no relation to the finished product (actors like Jamie Foreman, Emma Rigby, Samantha Barks and Steven Mackintosh were all listed, but non actually appear here) It could be a mistake, but I'm not sure. 

Of the actors who do appear, Drameh, Stott, and Arterton equip themselves really well. Elba isn't an actor I have ever been truly convinced by, but I have to say this is one of his better performance despite a couple of unconvincing moments and Cullen is wasted in a perfunctory wafer-thin role. But the real stars here were Creed-Miles and Wareing; they give the best performance and I could have watched a whole film based solely on their relationship and story. I felt  really short changed that they, essentially the beating heart of the film, were often overlooked for the more dramatic developments that occurred elsewhere. 

I was also extremely disappointed to see the venomous Kay Burley of Sky News and the eternal idiotic misogynist John Inverdale of BBC sport appear as themselves. They shouldn't even be employed in their day jobs, let alone diversify into film.

The Fall of the Essex Boys (2012)

On a wintry December night in Rettendon, Essex back in 1995, three Southend based gangsters and drug dealers were murdered in a Range Rover on a remote country lane.  It was a shocking gangland slaying whose reverberations were instantly felt in the press and media and, with a total of FIVE films exploring the incident, it has since become something of a regular crime cinema staple for the British film industry in the same way that the St Valentine's Day Massacre has been told time and time again by Hollywood.

At least Essex Boys, Jeff Pope and Terry Winsor's dramatised account of the murders, took Goodfellas as its inspiration. The director of  Fall Of The Essex Boys - the latest in a long line of 'Essex Boys' movies - Paul Tanter seems more in awe of the films of Nick Love which is hardly a great movie maker to be emulating now is it?

If you thought the world didn't need another film exploring the events leading up to the gangland slaying of Tony Tucker, Patrick Tucker and Craig Rolfe and its subsequent fall out, then you'd be right. The Fall of the Essex Boys, the fourth dramatisation, is completely redundant and barely watchable despite featuring two capable actors in the shape of Robert Cavanah and Kierston Wareing (I feel like I should worry for their respective careers, especially Wareing who has now appeared in three of the five existing Essex Boys movies) and sticking closely to the established facts - unlike Essex Boys which fictionalised the story and changed names to protect the, um, guilty - by drawing a link between the death of teenager Leah Betts and the subsequent murders, though they changed the name of the tragic teenager presumably out of respect for the family.

There's more than enough bad actors on display, actors who seem to make a career out of appearing in these straight to DVD Brit crime exploitation flicks, and chief amongst them are Peter Barrett, Jay Brown and Simon Phillips as the trio who end up full of lead in a Range Rover on a winter's morning by the close of the film. There is not an ounce of talent or charisma between these players that I can see. Then there is Nick Nevern. An intriguing presence in GBH which I saw recently, he does little here to capitalise on my interest and fails to impress especially in his delivery of one of the very worst voice over narrations I have ever heard. Think Danny Dyer's shouty, too many E numbers, I've-a-hard-on-for-this-scum narration in The Football Factory and then triple the irritation levels of that already deeply irritating device and you have what's on display here. It actually sets the standard for the film; brash, obnoxious, loud and totally unsubtle. 

Nevern isn't the only link to GBH by the way; there's also the appearance of the blonde, heavily made up and porcelain pretty Charlie Bond playing yet another totally unbelievable WPC. Why?! She has more lines here, and it's utterly cringeworthy and once again you feel like you're watching a kiss-o-gram fantasy WPC, helping to sink any believability and good intentions this film may kid itself in having.

Do yourself a favour and watch Essex Boys, because this one is for completists and masochists only.

The Liability (2012)

I was pleasantly surprised by The Liability. Purchased last week at Cex, Scarborough for just £3.50 (not bad for a new release) I was a little apprehensive by the above chav friendly poster art and write up proclaiming links to Snatch and Lock Stock (Snatch good, Lock Stock bad is the Random Ramblings rule), an apprehension that grew sitting through the trailers on the DVD before the film commenced; Frank Harper and Craig Fairbrass, somewhat depressingly 'avin it large' (St George's Day) and yet another film about 'The Essex Boys' gangland slaying of '95 (The Fall Of The Essex Boys) Had I made a mistake?

Actually The Liability bears little relation to such mockney glorification of thuggery and hooliganism - thank God - being quite a quirky modest little feature concerning an ageing hitman (Tim Roth) performing one last job for Peter Mullan's nouveau riche, golf casual wearing mob boss. The Liability in question seems to be Mullan's useless joyriding step son, played rather well by Jake O'Connell. Along the way the duo come across a series of ritualistic killings and an Eastern European backpacker (the gorgeous Talulah Riley from The Boat That Rocked) who witnesses one of their hits and who may be involved more than it would first seem.

There's nothing original in The Liability, indeed you can pretty much guess the plot within the first 10 minutes. This is ok though because at just 80 minutes the film does not outstay its welcome at all.  Roth, always a favourite of mine, gives another great savvy and assured performance that is both quietly menacing and subtly hilarious. In playing the tired gangland assassin there's something a pleasing tip of the hat to one of Roth's first features too, the excellent Stephen Frears film The Hit, in which he played the liability apprentice to John Hurt's weary gunman. There's also a scene where he gets to hold up a roadside diner, which will probably raise a smile from Pulp Fiction fans - I know I did.

However the 80 minute running time means a lot of the film isn't very well sketched out, including the characters. Riley for example is required to do little beyond looking glamourous, hold a gun and speak in broken English whilst Kierston Wareing (a perennial in London gangster films and TV - her big lips are currently gracing EastEnders I believe) has virtually nothing to do at all with only a handful of meaningless 'feed' lines and a poorly thought out and executed role within the story. 

Ultimately The Liability belongs to Roth, Mullan and O'Connell, who flesh their thin characters out very professionally with some strong acting.  It is just as well as without them the film would suffer considerably.