Life and Lyrics

Ashley D Walters is as always solid as an actor, starting his career as one of the members of the infamous grime-group So Solid Crew he quickly became a force to be reckoned with in UK film and TV-scene and even some stints in American movies like for instance 'Get Rich Or Die Trying' with 50 Cent.

This movie is sort of reminiscent of 'Get Rich Or Die Trying' but it's more playful and the characters aren't any wannabe-gangsters or gangsters (at least not Asher D and his friends)... I'd probably compare it more to Ernest Dickerson's 'Juice'.

Surprisingly despite this movie being about a rap-group in London, Asher D doesn't rap once in the movie, he plays the DJ and producer of the group.

The other actors portraying the rest of the group are skillful on the mic tho, so it doesn't suffer from it and Christopher Steward who plays Fable is genuinely likable and shows good range in acting as well as rapping.

The movie does have some flaws tho, the "Romeo and Juliet" aspect of the movie doesn't really get all to captivating for the viewer, I don't know where the problem lies exactly but I found myself not caring too much whether the 2 would stay together or not.

But overall the story keeps you entertained and visually the movie makes London look really good, even in the "less good" areas it's visually pleasing.

Comparing it to other movies of the same kind it's not up there with Kidulthood and Adulthood but it's miles beyond Rollin With The 9's and even slightly better than Bullet Boy IMO.

This is an EMO urban hip-hop film. They did everything in this film they did in 8MILE but just multiplied it 7-fold. Where in 8-mile we felt sorry for the white kid trying to make it out of the hood by rapping now we have a whole crew of "I gotta do this and get that prise-money to pay for my mothers new kidney."

First the story starts off going for the running from the cops, made great by the American urban films. Then it introduces all the characters in this crew and then their sad ass If I don't win this rap-battle then.....you've seen this story. But this time the bad guys have their own problems too. It never gets you too like anyone, I didn't hate them I just wish they'e do some elective surgery with Dr. MOSSBERG and put themselves out of their misery.

hey next time can we get a chance to like them first B4 you start pulling on the heart-strings of their poor miserable hard-Scrabble existence. Hell i even felt sorry for the rival evil rap crew.

In one point the HERO gets with a rich girl high above his station in life. his crew tells him to break up with her and walks around all mopey. they don't try and get jobs, or rob her and her friends or hold a rent party at her mansion. They just mope around.

This terrible film funded off the success achieved by recent urban films such as "Kidulthood" and "Bullet Boy" is some of the most embarrassing footage I've ever seen. Fans of "8 Mile" will remember the classic storyline seeing as it's basically the same except with the inclusion of guns. This cheap and nasty copy of some recent greats reminds me of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s - 1980s all over again. What a shame for Ashley Walters who showed so much promise in Bullet Boy. If you are at all fond of the London music scene, do not watch this film. If you couldn't care less, please don't think this is what it is really like.

Danny Lewis is a DJ (aka DJ D-Biz) and works in a record shop. Head of a small crew, he is lined up for the finals of the Mic Masters free-style competition against the notorious Hard Cash crew. At the same time he meets a stunning girl who seems to like him, only to find that she is the cousin of Cashflow – Money Man's right hand man. While the time he spends with Carmen isolates him from his crew, the impact is nothing compared to the fallout when the relationships come out into the open and the competition final looms.

Life and Lyrics has correctly been labelled as the UK version of 8 Mile but to some this alone has been criticism but personally I do not see this as a bad thing in and of itself. No, something being similar to something else is not a problem on the basis of that fact alone because this in itself doesn't mean that the film won't be good. No, the thing that prevents Life & Lyrics from being any good is that it feels like something that has gone out of its way to be generic and average. The problems almost all stem from the plot. We go through quite familiar threads as we follow the film but mostly it is reasonable enough stuff at a base level. The main thing about the plot is the way it feels it has to throw in death and guns at the end – it does it with little meaning and the abrupt nature of the death means we don't have a chance for it to sink in or to be real to the viewer. To be frank it feels like the writer felt it had to be there and just did it for want of anything else.

This maybe annoyed me more than it should have because I was looking for it to do something interesting. Although Cashflow had been the sort of "baddie" of the piece, his own problems meant he had a touch of sympathy from me and I was hoping that the script would deliver something realer, more heart-felt by making the situation the "baddie" rather than a man. As it is it goes for the easy thing and paints the "man" in the baddie role, only to attempt an emotion punch on the viewer. Outside of this we have the unlikely romance and the minor details of the story, all of which rely on the actual script to produce characters and dialogue. Again here it just feels like it has been cut and pasted from other places. The characters don't ring true as they don't seem real – their emotions and motivations are simply painted and these blocky people make the blocky plot just seem all the more obvious.

The performances lift it ever so slightly. Walters was much better in Bullet Boy than here and, as much as he tries with his charisma, he doesn't do enough to lift the film. Likewise Rose (formerly of Precious) is very attractive and smooth but doesn't get a character to work with. That said, her being very easy on the eye does help. Together, Walters and Rose look like a good fit but their characters and thus their chemistry doesn't feel nature at all. Patrick Regis is handed an interesting character that offered him potential which he mostly realises as he conveys a sense of being trapped in his debts and by his own front – he deserved better as an actor than the narrative handed him. The rest of the actors are so-so as performers but mostly deliver on stage. As with 8 Mile the battle sequences make the film and are cool to listen to but are poorly delivered by the film. The "loser" looks beaten every time (like the director had said "look beaten") and the contest aspect suffers as a result, making it less engaging than its 8 Mile equivalent even if the lyrics are good.

Life & Lyrics ends up being an average film that doesn't seem to aspire to much. The plot and script kill it and nobody can raise it above the obvious and generic level that this places it at. It is not awful but there is little beyond the battles at the end that raise the interest and almost none of it feels real, natural or engaging.