Gassed Up

I'm a Londoner and have grown up in the east end. Growing up I knew teenagers into petty crime, and even some small time gangsters like those shown in the film. Gassed Up is a sort of believable portrait of that kind of culture in London, in the 2020s.

Honestly the depiction of London "Ghetto Culture" in this film is probably fairly close to reality, and in that respect the movie gets this aspect kind of right - London youth culture - but not 100% right, and it's not quite as believable as it would like to be.

Apart from that it's a fairly decent anti-crime film with a good message about not taking the wrong path. The story is interesting and watchable and the characters likeable enough to keep me watching.

Not a perfect film by far, but not a bad one either. Check it out if you're interested in London gang culture. But don't take it too seriously.

Great film making... gorgeous colours and scenes. Young talent is incredible and I'm sure these actors will be seen again. Story kept me interested all the way through and had a fresh new movie making feel.

Ash stands out as the protagonist with a genuine connection that the viewer gains as the film progresses. I laughed, winced and sympathised with him. The story aims to highlight successfully, the various struggles that people live through including seeking asylum, substance abuse, cost of living, involvement in crime and how this inevitability progresses with characters that are believable and live through difficulties that lead them to these decisions.. good and bad.

"Ash" (Stephen Odubola) lives at home with his young sister and his permanently absent or stoned mother. His dream is to start a business of his own (he likes to fix things) and to get her into rehab. To that end he's mixed up with four of his mates in a snatch 'n grab scheme using mopeds to pinch mobile phones and handbags from unsuspecting folks on the street. They sell these on to "Shaz" (Jelena Gavrilovic) who happens to be the cousin of the gang's leader "Dubz" (Taz Skylar). "Ash" finds the shoebox under his bed is gradually filling up, but when he's told his mother's medical costs are likely to run to £25,000 he realises that nicking a few phones ain't going cut it. After a raid to get themselves some new transport goes awry, with one of their number a bit too handy with the spray-on acid, they are reduced to four and given a new task. Rob a jewellery store and make some proper money. When this goes tragically wrong, "Ash" and his pals "Kabz" (Mohammed Mansaray) and "Mole" (Tobias Jowett) have to persuade their briefly ostracised mate "Roach" (Craige Middleburg) to come back and help them - because their paymasters are still demanding a sackful of loot! Up until this point, the film is actually quite decent - a diverse group of life-long mates all carrying out what they reckon are victimless crimes to make some cash. Once the violent elements kick in, though, the plot really heads south. What made it a bit different is subsumed into a rather amateurishly directed affair with implausible police chases, even more unlikely robbery scenarios and just one chunk too much of bad decision making - on and off the screen. Skylar is a man with charisma, but the rest of these characters never light up the screen or the story and by the sequel-suggesting conclusion, I'd sort of lost interest. It is worth a watch with all the "life's there for the taking" stuff going on, but it'll be on the television soon enough and I'm sure it can wait til then.

Most certainly not perfect, I'm not convinced by it I won't lie, but... 'Gassed Up' narrowly does enough.

Making your lead characters criminals is always a brave choice, you're almost setting yourself up for failure from a film point of view. I'm personally cool with a movie's main lot not being total good guys, like 'The Fast and the Furious' is literally one of my favourite flicks ever, but it does make it more difficult to root for the people onscreen.

In this execution of making the audience do the aforementioned, I think this film doesn't do the best job. I appreciate the backstory we get for them, well at least for a few of them, and it does work in making you understand their point of views. However, I'm just not sure if it's enough to overcome what the characters are actually doing; it's not like they are Robin Hoods... well, I guess they actually are robin hoods (ha! Get it! Sorry!) but you get what I mean.

There's also an inconsistency in that they avoid going up a level in their activities as they know it'll bring more heat - yet not long after stating that they brazenly take it up a notch anyway. A possible 'out' is they are blinded by wonga but that's unconvincing. All this is just me saying that the writing isn't the best, in my opinion of course.

What does save this is that the feel of the film is competent, it's fairly well put together and moves along at a decent pace. The cast are also positives, with Stephen Odubola being the clear standout as Ash. Taz Skylar and Mohammed Mansaray are alright, though Craige Middleburg and Mae Muller (strange casting for the latter) are more miss than hit. I would've liked Steve Toussaint to have been used more.

Glad I watched this at the cinema though, always nice to support productions from the homeland. Two groups of two were in there with me, though one duo did decide to leave with a good chunk of the movie left; I see other reviewers have noted likewise - ouch! I can possibly see why if I'm totally truthful, but for me I just about got enough out of it. I could easily be rating this a step lower, though.

Where do you even begin with this codswallop produced by Amazon? Not one interaction between any of the characters, no matter how big or small had an ounce realism. Everything was so unnatural that you might wonder if this group of supposed actors weren't just caught in a giant butterfly net on a London estate and instructed to speak a load of cringeworthy nonsense to one another in front of a camera. No one comes out of this with any credit. If you've seen one chav movie, you've seen them all. Tune in for a laugh but do be warned; viewing this drivel for any longer than 60 seconds could cause brain damage.

Know what I'm sayin' fam?