Shank

Menhaj Huda & Noel Clarke have a lot to answer for because without the success of their 2006 film Kidulthood this piece of crap would never had seen the light of day.

The worst thing is we'll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing as people - I don't know who - are paying to see this, having opened to Top Ten Box-Office in its first week.

I guess I was warned in the opening credits of this film it wouldn't amount to much. How so, well, it features a man taking a dump in the street and thats how I felt having sat through all 90 Minutes.

What I'd like to know is what the likes of Colin Salmon & Robbie Gee were thinking to be associated with this.

Set in a future London that looks a lot like, well, the city today. I'm guessing its supposed to say something about "Urban" life & the street. Ya get me!!

The film I assume is trying to tell the viewer that violence is bad however everything it says the opposite. A dog fight played out as a video game & theft is alright as long as its for your "Fam". Even the climatic fight at the films end is botched cop out.

As I said before we are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing before we see any decent Urban set films.

Don't bother to pay good money to see this don't even get it on DVD. Wait to it shown on TV hopefully at about 1am on a cold Wednesday night.

Absolutely rubbish.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=14198203

OK, this will be a very short review.

Only watch this movie if you are really, really into gang-type movies and just have to watch them all.

And then do so with full knowledge that this might just be the worst you ever saw.

Otherwise, save yourself the waste of time, I wished I had.

And yes, the basic idea of a city like London being extremely divided in a poor and a rich segment is not that bad. But they could have made a way better movie about that if you ask me.

Nothing good then? Well, the camera-work is not too bad, and use of colour is reasonable. But that really is it, in my humble opinion.

With an opening sequence copied from DISTRICT 13 and an entire storyline and setting copied from KIDULTHOOD, there's nothing remotely original about SHANK. It juts and jumps all over the place, telling a storyline of revenge and brotherhood that's been done to death a zillion times already. It makes you feel like this particular genre of gritty, London-set gangster film is dead in the water, although a film came along a year later that proved there was still life in the genre yet: I'm talking about 2011's ATTACK THE BLOCK, of course.

Sadly, SHANK is nothing like ATTACK THE BLOCK. The script is dead-headed stupid, the characters clichéd and the frenzied editing actually nausea-inducing. The obnoxious leading characters are repulsive in the extreme and their quest to undertake revenge seems to go absolutely nowhere; by the time the film ends, absolutely nothing has happened to any of them. There are no character arcs whatsoever.

I don't know what's worse, actually: Paul Van Carter's wannabe-hip script or Mo Ali's drug-addled direction. Put together they provide a nauseating example of all that's wrong with British cinema when a successful film comes along and the inevitable rip-offs follow.

London 2015. Society has split in two leaving the economy and most basic services in the hands of private corporations. The city itself has been split between the well-off and the rest. Within the cut-off squalors of the capital's streets gangs of hoodlums divide and rule the limited wealth. Food has become the most important commodity: munchies are worth life and death. The Paper Runners, led by Rager (Ashley Bashy Thomas), is a small gang of misfits with a knack for getting stuff without bloodshed (don't cause any harm and no harm can come to you). Rager is a role model for his little brother, Junior (Kedar Williams-Stirling), a get-away specialist, as well as the remainder of the crew: Kickz (Adam Deacon), Craze (Michael Socha) and Sweet Boy (Jan Uddin). However in this dog-eat-dog world not everyone has such scruples and youngling Tugz (Jerome Holder) is the worst of the lot...

"Shank" is an explicit orgy of sound and images pasted together with an initial headache reaction. After the initial onslaught the fast editing and video-clip montage on acid does recede a couple of notches, so the story can be fleshed out. But even than we are input sequence after sequence of rapturous music and occasional computer-inspired scenes drowning out the plot and most of the character development. At times the movie actually feels more like a filmed video game (or more like a singular mission/level of it), where occasional power bars and animations fit effortlessly as part of the experience. This all-action approach did however cause many key moments of the movies to lack enough contemplation - Mo Ali was unable to take a breath and let the moment sink emotionally into the viewers. The occasionally uninspiring derivative plotting and/or dialogue don't help to overcome this obstacles either...

Nonetheless this unrelenting storytelling isn't all amiss, as in between this overzealous approach to innovative methods of telling a film story, you find a decent amount of subtexts and brilliant ideas. Unfortunately for Mo Ali his incapability to show restraint (and unwillingness to use some more classical artistic tools) hindered the intriguing concept of a boy being unable to properly identify feelings of emptiness and anguish, instead channelling them into revenge and anger. Also several scenes were extremely inspiring in their capability of mixing emotions or simple storytelling with a modern cutting edge freshness to them. Despite being uneven and at times lazy it does however warrant a look, as there are several gems hidden inside its chaotic shell.

Despite everything said the movie is at least a brilliant score to the movie, which shows that England remains the epicentre of adventurous music.

I really really try to view a movie on it's merits and go into seeing one with an open mind and watch it to the end. With this i couldn't, what can i say, it's a dog, simple as that, a dog with 4 broken legs would be more apt.

Combine a poor plot, poor acting, great British stereotypes and you have Shank. The director must have been asleep and the editor obviously only did this project for the money, don't ask what the actors did. This would border on some of the worst, if not very worst piece of British cinema i have ever had the misfortune to see. I felt like i was parted from my money under false pretenses.

It's not possible to rate this a 0 but i will anyway. Save your money and rent something else