The Grind

I watched this film last night after watching EastEnders and I really enjoyed it. I've always been a fan of independent films and this is an intelligent film. It's idea is not complicated at all but smart at the same time and here lies its strength to me: The Idea. It's about the characters in a world of nightclubs and all the possible possibilities in our life that people create and the biggest (bad or good) changes they make. With all low budget films the acting is poor but I felt the lead was good - Gordon is one to watch for the future! Danny-John Jules plays the crafty Phil and Jamie Foreman was mesmerising as always and perhaps carried the film on his own at times. Catch it if you can!

Perhaps not quite Lock Stock but still an awesome British Gangster movie!! I was very surprised to see the low rating here certainly compared to some other British movies released lately, as this one is thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely up there with the likes of Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1 etc.. Instant classic!!!

I was looking forward to watching The Grind. Having been a fan of Jamie Foreman for years, and his fantastic turn in EastEnders over the last 6 months, this film looked interesting.

And was it any good? It was pretty good for a low budget film, to be fair. The story of a couple of mates, with one owing money to the other's boss is a familiar line. Martin Scorsese did this with Mean Streets nearly 30 years ago. But it works here in the Hackney setting.

Performances range from very good to poor. Stand outs are Foreman and Danny John-Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf)

Production values are good - visually it holds well, having gone for the gritty street realism of Nil By Mouth and Fish Tank. You can see the angle the Director had gone for in presenting a urban, street level feel.

The problems are fairly easy to point at. The female characters are underused. The Vince character isn't great, it would have been better to have focused solely on the main character Bobby. And some of the dance scenes go on a bit, so if you like trance, that's great, but otherwise...

Having said that, the pluses are there. The director has a strong visual sense, the locations are reminders of what many Londoners live through outside of the glare of the media. Jamie Foreman is at his most serious best, in fact his best performance in years. The story and dialogue is good.

So it's a bit hit and miss, but worth a watch, even just to see Danny John-Jules and Jamie Foreman in strong performances, and the evocative settings and visuals. And it's a whole lot better than some of the British dross out there.

The urban drama is saturated to bursting point with run of the mill, lazy mockney dramas and The Grind brings absolutely nothing new to the genre. The characterisations are woefully developed and acted; they stumble through what can hardly be considered narrative spewing out lines of dire- logue that amounts to posturing and screaming "fack" at each other. The direction isn't much better. The pacing is all over the shop from overly long shots of club scenes and slow motion walks to pad out the 90mins run time whilst employing bleached out visuals via out of focus shaky cam (presumably for "realism"). Overall though, it's just plain dull and is truly a Grind just to get to the credits.

I had lost sight of how bad a film could be.

I am genuinely lost for words and would not know where to begin describing how appalling this film is. However, I'll give it a shot: It is a plot-less mess, that hopes to somehow redeem itself in the 'arty' (read sh*te) editing.

Suffice to say this film could be used as torture mechanism, water- boarding would seem like a month in the Maldives.

Please spare yourself the need to have to write a review by avoiding at all cost.

'The Grind' really does plumb new depths of badly shot banality. It also re-defines what can be called a 'film'

I like gritty, I love 'Deadman's Shoes' (9.8/10 for me) but for f*ck's sake, don't expect anything remotely watchable or anything with a semblance of cohesion or meaning.