A New Breed of Criminal

Why do script writers always try to find excuses for hardened criminals. This film tells the story of some very nasty people and excuses their behaviour by focussing on their hard upbringing and environment. Trouble is, it doesn't tell the story very well. The acting is average at best with the exception of the wonderful Nicholas Ball. The prize for the worst acting goes to the actor playing Detective Scott. He uses the strangest attempt at an American accent I have ever heard but why attempt it in the first place. He is from Newcastle playing a Newcastle detective. Did I miss something. Is he supposed to be on secondment from the NYPD? Was the explainer cut? As for the rest of the story it just glosses over these real life criminals making them out to be some sort of urban heroes. They are not.

Ok so first, this is set in 1980s/90s, yet everyone has a smartphone, silly mistake but that' sums this up from start to finish.

The lead who plays Stephen is beyond wooden, and it's hard to decide what's worse, the casting or the script.

The Duffer died after a fight at a blues party, stabbed in the armpit. Yet in this he dies walking the town in broad daylight.

The portrayal of Vic or Viv who it's clearly meant to be is again inaccurate.

There's no mention of Stephen and Vic/Viv and the Hobos nightclub incident for which were both jailed for and friends at the time.

The plot jumps around and tries to cram in as much as possible in as short time as possible and the end result was laughable.

Please do not ever write a script again or cast the actor in anything other than an extra role, to help me and others from wasting time and pain.

A film about the north east wouldn't be complete without including Ernie, Big Billy, Panda, Conroys, but through pettiness it seems they've excluded all of the characters that could have made this script better.

Even the use of Duffy was strange and random, and a wasted opportunity missed by amateur writers.

Like to see someone have another try at a true crime north east film, but stay clear of all involved in this when doing so.

Embarrassed for some involved, not all, as 1/2 seemed like cameos for fiends and associates.

Even the ending with Charlie Kray was misleading, Charlie was a loveable rogue, a deal boy, not a gangster, it's disrespectful to his memory to give that impression, but it was also disrespectful to Vivs family how the facts were left out about why they turned on Viv, simply because Viv turned his back on them, came across as petty, like most of the film.

Bless Steve Wraith , the lad so wants to be an actor ....but he's not .Ive seen him in a few things and he's more wooden than Pinocchio's left leg .He seems to stiffen up whenever he has to move .I found myself questioning the actual point of 99% of the film and after sitting through the whole film (in 3 separate sittings) I feel I should punish myself , especially after paying for the privilege. I have an old rusty tin opener in the shed and later on today I will gouge both of my eyes out in an attempt tempt to cleanse my body and what's left of my soul. It makes Rise of the Footsoldier 7 look like Gone With The Wind. I feel I should mention the accent of the lead detective , I can only describe it as sounding like An American Joe Pasquale being violated with a cattle prod. All in all possibly thee worst thing I've ever watched in my life and that includes watching my workmate sneeze in the van causing a large bloodied snot to land on the dashboard.

I know nothing of this story and after watching this film I still know nothing of this story. Its what you call a poor poor man's rise of footsoldier, but one of the sequels cos the original was a good film.

I can forgive the bad casting, stupid accents, time scale, dumb costume, laughable fight sequences, wooden characters etc but at the heart of all this is the awful script. I see the lead character wrote this, and sadly it shows. This is my first time watching a Steve Wraith film and sadly it will be my last. The script was gcse level at best. Not one for slatting ppl in industry but this needs to be said... 'Steve, you may read this and think I don't understand the film you made, but I do and it was a badly made one. Sorry but it's true. Plus those who funded the film, are you on drugs?' Anyone who thinks this is even a fair film knows nothing about film so ignore any high reviews.

Believe me when I say this is possibly the worst 'film' ever made.

The acting is atrocious and makes me cringe.

Don't get me started on Steve Wraith. He cannot act, it's depressingly bad to witness and he needs to accept that.

The American cops accent was hideously poor, how it got past the edit just shows you how amateurish this whole venture was.

One thing I did enjoy though was the choreography on the fight scenes, absolutely hilarious, as if it was done by a couple of 12 year olds in their drama class or even still at break time.

Basically to sum it up, I'd recommend this to nobody...