Anthony

Such a sad story and one I hadn't remembered until seeing this superbly written drama. The pain this family endured was unimaginable and not one that any family should have to ever go through.

When I first read the synopsis of this film, and that it was based on a true story, I really wasn't interested. What was the point of showing someone's life if they had not been murdered? However, I watched the trailer and I found the main character to be an extremely charismatic actor, who draws you straight into the story and his wonderful family. And the whole "What life he may of had" worked brilliantly by giving you insight into the kind of person he was, and how much he was loved by others, and that he would try his best to make people happy. Now I'm not an idiot, I know this was painted through rose tainted spectacles, and his life could have been the complete opposite, we will never know, but I didn't care in the end. He, and His family were portrayed beautifully and I think it was a beautiful memorial for his Mother and family. I'm sure many tears were shed, including mine.

Absolutely heartbreaking. Shows the harsh reality of this world.

Deeply saddening and uncomfortable viewing.

'Anthony' details the real life racially motivated murder of Anthony Walker. As you can imagine, it all makes for extremely tough viewing, especially when you know of the incident. I do like how the film portrays events, with focus put on Walker's life as opposed to the racists.

The film tells the story in reverse, in relation to how his life could've turned out. If I'm honest, I didn't love the backwards nature of the storytelling - it breaks up what they are trying to show too much for my liking, as it feels too stop-start. With that noted, the acting and meaning of those scenes are very nicely done.

Toheeb Jimoh is superb in the lead role, top performance. Rakie Ayola (Gee) and Bobby Schofield (Mick) are very good too. It can't have been a easy one to act out, for everyone involved I imagine.

It's not an easy watch, but I'd argue it's an important one about a truly tragic and disgusting true event.

So this TV film hit the BBC last week and I have now watched Anthony and here is my review for the film. This premise of the film looks at how the life of a young black man could have been if he wasn't murdered at the age of 18. Now before I review this film, I have to say that I will be judging this as a film, obviously the real life incident was terrible but this review will be looking at how good the film is and that alone.

Main Character Toheeb Jimoh plays Anthony here and I thought in terms of his acting he was really good here. He comes across as a likeable normal guy and does a good job in making him as likeable as possible which is credit to him. But I thought that due to the way the film is made I never really felt connected to the character of Anthony, the film is very choppily made and it does a poor job establishing what Anthony was really like. I mean I still cared about his situation of course but not as much as I was meant to and that is the film's fault not Toheeb Jimoh's fault.

Supporting Characters Bobby Schofield plays Mick a character with a speech impediment and I thought he did a good job. I liked his and Anthony's dynamic and when he is on screen he may be the most interesting part of this film, especially in the first act. All of Anthony's relationships and friendships are well acted especially his mother it's just again we don't see enough of them and the lack of screen time really does hurt in the emotional impact and could have been done much better.

Story The story here is a mixed bag, the second half of the story does a great job of showing the intensity and tragedy of the situation. It is hard to watch at times but that is important and necessary for this film to succeed quite a bit and it adds a gut punch to the tragic ending of the story. But I can't lie the first 40 minutes of the film wasn't interesting really and that is almost half of the film, it came across as a bit of a puff piece and is dull and unimaginative as it is the part of the film not based on true events. I just think this film would have been better looking at Anthony's life before he was killed not some made up stuff of what could have happened afterwards.

Script The script is okay, there are a nice bit of drama and humour there but for a really heavy subject matter there wasn't as many heavy moments as I thought there could have been. This film could have been even better if they added more weight to it.

Style As mentioned above when the film focuses on its uncomfortable moments it does a great job and hits home just how ridiculous and disgusting these acts of violence were and still are in every day society. But the first half of the film is just really slow and boring and it took me out of the film and took me a long time for me to get into it and really get invested.

Overall Overall, this is an average but maybe important film. In this day and age it is crazy that we even have these issues but it is important that these terrible injustices are shown which means it might be worth a watch for people who need to see these things happen in film. But I would advise that there are some better films based on racism then this one such as Fruitvale Station which is a film I would recommend to watch over this one.

Rating - 5/10.