Diary of a Bad Lad

Every Danny Dyer fan should see this film. And so should he.

For those who don't know, Danny Dyer is an actor has built an inexplicably successful career playing geezerish mockney gangsters and football hooligans. He also presents "Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men", a morally-questionable piece of reality TV in which he pals around with various low-level gangsters, celebrating their violent actions. Recently, Dyer made the sort of viciously misogynous "joke" one of the characters in his films, or one of his new gangster pals would make in a cheap lads' mag renowned for its Neanderthal attitude to women, and sparked a national outcry. Dyer very quickly backtracked, claiming to have been misquoted, expressing bewilderment as to how such a misunderstanding might have occurred. This is what happens to people who hang around with gangsters and criminals: they lose their distance, their objectivity; they become trapped in situations they did not initiate. Their laddish power fantasies turn nasty; spiral totally out of control.

I found myself thinking of Danny Dyer and his fans a lot while I was watching DIARY OF A BAD LAD, Pleased Sheep Productions' ferociously intelligent study of the media's obsession with, and complicity in, modern criminality.

The story is a simple one, a morality play for the modern age. Disgraced film lecturer and would-be documentary filmmaker Barry Lick has a project he believes will be the making of him: a no-holds barred documentary investigation into the alleged criminal activities of a dodgy local businessman who for legal reasons he can only identify as "Ray Topham". Recruiting a team of his own former students, Barry's quest leads him to "Topham's" "Security Consultant", Tommy Morghen, who offers all of the access the filmmakers could wish for. But Tommy is a smarter player than Barry and his callow crew could possibly imagine, and is exploiting them for his own ruthless ends…

What gives Bad Lad its unique edge is its approach, the dextrous way in which it blurs the boundaries between the real and the reconstructed. An object lesson in low budget film-making; in making the best of use of available facilities; the film is shot entirely in grainy TV-documentary style, with scenes actually cut together from much longer in-character interviews and fly-on-the-wall sequences. Dialogue is a mixture of tight scripting and controlled improvisation. The cast is a carefully selected mixture of professional actors and "real" people. The filmmakers play fictional versions of themselves - young filmmakers just out of university, enlisted by their former tutor for a project that all of them see as a ticket to that much-coveted media job. Writer / Producer / Star Jonathan Williams really is a former film tutor, and director Michael Booth was one of his students. Various shady local "characters", such as Nicky Lockett (MC Tunes) appear as "themselves". This intricately-constructed quasi-reality really allows the actors to shine. All are on peak form. Joe O'Byrne delivers a mesmerising performance as the charming, terrifying sociopath Tommy Morghen, Donna Henry is a brittle mixture of defiance and vulnerability as exploited drug courier and porn starlet Joanne, and there are stand-out tragi-comic supporting turns from Clyve Bonnelle as an ill-fated junkie and James Foster as one of Tommy's more hapless victims.

The result is one of the most plausible and convincing faux-documentaries ever made. So authentic is the film's recreation of the modern documentary style, and so credible its performances and depiction of Northern Gangland, that when lead actor Joe O'Byrne appeared in character as the gangster Tommy Morghen to introduce a screening at the BBC in London, somebody actually called security. But such attention to detail is only half the story. What gives the film its teeth is the extraordinary, multi-layered script, which is able to slide effortlessly from wince-inducing comedy of embarrassment into bone-chilling cruelty and violence and back again, and which boils with rage at our gangster-fixated, morally empty Reality-TV-dominated freak-show culture. The real monster in the film is not Tommy Morghen, it is the increasingly deranged and self-justifying filmmaker, Barry Lick, who tells one traumatized documentary subject, with an almost Satanic relish: "We can do anything we like - you signed a release!"

With such an attitude, Barry's future in TV would seem guaranteed. The only problem is, he signed a contract of his own

When i say this movie changed my life i wouldn't be lying one bit. if a scene can stick in your head weeks after seeing it then your doing well. if multiple scenes still make you laugh, wince, cringe or grin to yourself weeks after seeing it, then your watching something special. This film will not be to everyones taste but then again nothing ever is, but the realism of how you follow 'Barry Lick' and his crew as they try to film a gritty, underworld documentary about Blackburn Gangsters will have you engrossed right until the multiple twist ending, which will no doubt leave you feeling angry and shocked (but I'm not saying anymore).

Of all the gangster/underworld films I've ever seen i think this is the only film that now makes me not want to become a gangster or get up to no good. If your the kind of person that likes to be a bit naughty, then this film makes you feel like a naughty school child that has just been sent to the corner! The script is incredibly strong and most performances are realistic and not to melodramatic, in particular Joe O'Byrne as Tommy Morghen, Jonathan Williams as Barry Lick and Roxanne Gregory as Roxy amongst others. The locations and camera work aren't 'mega budget' but they don't have to be and shouldn't be (to an extent) as the film would lose its clout and realistic edge.

It seems a shame that such a good and honest British 'No budget' film has not yet gone mainstream, i can only hope that it soon will and audiences will be able to watch a film that could and probably will give the British film industry quite a shakeup!

Strong stuff indeed!!! Innovative, creepy yet also darkly funny - this is a must see movie that defies all attempts to categorise it as just a gangster film.

It is so much more, and shows a depth of quality and originality that suggests a bright future for this group of oh so talented film makers.

This excellent low budget British film underlines the depth of talent that exists in the UK and deserves to be seen by the widest possible audience.

Michael Booth is clearly a man to watch and I look forward to watching his next movie with enthusiasm.

I gave this film 2/10 stars. I couldn't make it to the end, so I thought I should be a bit generous. I suspect that if I had watched the entire film, outrage at being so stupid to waste more of my time would have moved me to give it a lower score.

I felt I was watching the results of what somebody would create if they bought the cheapest little camcorder and asked some friends to help him or her make a cheesy pseudo-documentary. It was painfully dull and tedious to watch. I kept waiting for something of substance to happen, but eventually gave up. The only thing gritty about this film is the video quality of most shots.

"He'll make you laugh, he'll make you think," sang Professor Fink in an episode of The Simpsons, and he could well have been talking about one of the folks behind Diary of a Bad Lad. The genius of this staggeringly-realistic faux documentary is that its black humour makes you laugh even as another part of you is thinking, "Oh my god - what these people are doing is horrific." It entertains hugely for an hour and a half, but leaves you with many unsettling thoughts on both the horrors of the crimes committed by the "Bad Lad" Tommy and the exploitative nature of the media and the ethics of journalists. These themes have never been more relevant than in these days of 24-hour news coverage when no-one thinks twice about broadcasting images of bleeding victims of terrorist attacks staggering into ambulances.

I'm generally a fan of Hollywood-style movies with happy endings, slick camera-work, fun characters and traditional "good guys", so for a film that deliberately eschews all of these things to appeal to me is no mean feat - that it did is a testament to the quality of the writing, direction and performances. The illusion of the whole thing being a real documentary is damn-near perfect, with every scene written and performed in an utterly naturalistic fashion. This film desperately deserves a release.