Terry

Terry Jones (played by Nick Nevern) has agreed to let Charlie (played by Manuel Atkinson) follow him around as part of a student film project. What we the viewer see is the point of view from the camera as Terry goes about his regular life. 'Terry is such an unusual but really cool idea for a film, I dare say a lot of people will lump this film into the found footage genre, but Terry is more than that. I can honestly say that I cant think of another film in the British film world that has done this before or actually done it since. The storyline is as basic as it needs to be 'man followed by cameraman' but its insanely engaging to watch and most of that is down to the performance of Nick Nevern in the title role. Nick also wrote and directed the film, even though its director credit is titled as Charlie Ruez (the character of the filmmaker)

What a weird and wonderful film Terry is. It took me a couple of years to watch for the first time, but It wont be two years before I watch it again. Definitely check it out if you can.

When it comes to gritty, realistic crime dramas, a genre that has many pitfalls, clichés and suffering from lack of interesting angles this film provides a somewhat fresh new approach.

Filmed in the style of a mockumentary/found footage film, this film unfolds the story of Terry(played by Nick Nevern, also directing/screenplay)and his mates, living a kind of "chav" lifestyle.

Chav is like working class youth subculture, deeply rooted in urban areas in big cities in the UK. The American equivalent would be white trash or just inner city youths drifting around, jobless, doing drugs, petty crimes etc.

Terry doesn't have job, spends his days drinking, doing drugs and occasionally beating up people that might offend him. Throughout his ordeal a filmmaker is following him around and sometimes asks questions, helps him out etc.

The biggest flaw of this film is the script, it seems like Nick Nevern hasn't really figured out how to tell this story, and thus it becomes sometimes very stale and boring.

The film also lacks a real social criticism that other UK based crime dramas like Sweet Sixteen (2002), Dead Man's Shoes (2004)etc had. Another flaw is that we never get to know Terry enough, who he is, why he acts the way he does, his background.

Bu the lack of the above, Nick Neverns makes up for in acting and directing, he and the rest of cast feels very convincing in their portrayal of bottomfeeders of UK society.

Another big flaw is from a technical standpoint, granted the film is supposed to look like a bad homevideo but sometimes I wished that Neverns had used a real camera man with a steadicam because sometimes the film gets too much motion blur and it is hard to follow what happens on the screen.

Had Neverns seen Shadows (1959), Festen/The Celebration (1998)and taken points from those films he might have avoided this. The audio is also very bad and should have been fixed.

Viewers that enjoyed Bullet Boy (2004), Sweet Sixteen (2002), and loves UK based crime drama should see Terry (2011) because despite its flaws it is worth a look and I'm looking forward to see more from Nick Nevern.

This is a good film, shot via a handy cam and in the style of a documentary. Film student George is making a project film for his course and Terry and his life is the art.

The films jumps about a bit but I liked it, it is gritty and sometimes the audio is hard to understand but in terms of showing life on the streets with people who have no goals other than to party, make money and live life it works - The Director (Nick Neverne) has managed to capture some despair in the film and in does translate well, you can't help liking Terry despite knowing he is a bit unhinged. I guess for me, it is that which makes me like this film.

There are sections of the dialogue that are a bit clichéd with plenty of references to mug or blood, and there are some stereo types; I think in some scenes guns are forced into the mix simply to add gangster weight and while they are essential to the plot I can't help think they do not add much to the story. A little bit forced.

Despite these minor issues, I liked it and actually I got onboard with it, characters are flushed out well enough but a little more history would have been nice, but, the film is a supposed to be a project by 'Charlie' and so I guess this would not have been in context of it to have huge character development.

Give it a try and do not be put of by the low rating IMDb has, sometimes it is better to watch and then judge, and in this case it has never been more true............blood :) A solid 7 from me.