Shank

London 2015. Society has split in two leaving the economy and most basic services in the hands of private corporations. The city itself has been split between the well-off and the rest. Within the cut-off squalors of the capital's streets gangs of hoodlums divide and rule the limited wealth. Food has become the most important commodity: munchies are worth life and death. The Paper Runners, led by Rager (Ashley Bashy Thomas), is a small gang of misfits with a knack for getting stuff without bloodshed (don't cause any harm and no harm can come to you). Rager is a role model for his little brother, Junior (Kedar Williams-Stirling), a get-away specialist, as well as the remainder of the crew: Kickz (Adam Deacon), Craze (Michael Socha) and Sweet Boy (Jan Uddin). However in this dog-eat-dog world not everyone has such scruples and youngling Tugz (Jerome Holder) is the worst of the lot...

"Shank" is an explicit orgy of sound and images pasted together with an initial headache reaction. After the initial onslaught the fast editing and video-clip montage on acid does recede a couple of notches, so the story can be fleshed out. But even than we are input sequence after sequence of rapturous music and occasional computer-inspired scenes drowning out the plot and most of the character development. At times the movie actually feels more like a filmed video game (or more like a singular mission/level of it), where occasional power bars and animations fit effortlessly as part of the experience. This all-action approach did however cause many key moments of the movies to lack enough contemplation - Mo Ali was unable to take a breath and let the moment sink emotionally into the viewers. The occasionally uninspiring derivative plotting and/or dialogue don't help to overcome this obstacles either...

Nonetheless this unrelenting storytelling isn't all amiss, as in between this overzealous approach to innovative methods of telling a film story, you find a decent amount of subtexts and brilliant ideas. Unfortunately for Mo Ali his incapability to show restraint (and unwillingness to use some more classical artistic tools) hindered the intriguing concept of a boy being unable to properly identify feelings of emptiness and anguish, instead channelling them into revenge and anger. Also several scenes were extremely inspiring in their capability of mixing emotions or simple storytelling with a modern cutting edge freshness to them. Despite being uneven and at times lazy it does however warrant a look, as there are several gems hidden inside its chaotic shell.

Despite everything said the movie is at least a brilliant score to the movie, which shows that England remains the epicentre of adventurous music.

British film is going down the pan, unless you're one of the few lucky Brits who get millions to play with like Ridley Scott or Neil marshall. All we ever seem to get are British gangster movies and they're always utter s##t, does no one have any other ideas?.

This one in particular was the worst god damn thing iv ever wasted 20 min of my life on, i know team America said every film needs a montage but do you really need one every 5 min? i felt like i was watching MTV base......i was just waiting for that dizzy rascal guy to jump out and spin a rented medallion into the camera. I have no idea if this film got any better and frankly i don't care, every copy should be recalled and burned and anyone who actually spent money on this should get it back, unfortunately we cant get our lives back.

If you have any sense at all you will put this back on the shelf and walk away and spread the word.

OK, this will be a very short review.

Only watch this movie if you are really, really into gang-type movies and just have to watch them all.

And then do so with full knowledge that this might just be the worst you ever saw.

Otherwise, save yourself the waste of time, I wished I had.

And yes, the basic idea of a city like London being extremely divided in a poor and a rich segment is not that bad. But they could have made a way better movie about that if you ask me.

Nothing good then? Well, the camera-work is not too bad, and use of colour is reasonable. But that really is it, in my humble opinion.

Menhaj Huda & Noel Clarke have a lot to answer for because without the success of their 2006 film Kidulthood this piece of crap would never had seen the light of day.

The worst thing is we'll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing as people - I don't know who - are paying to see this, having opened to Top Ten Box-Office in its first week.

I guess I was warned in the opening credits of this film it wouldn't amount to much. How so, well, it features a man taking a dump in the street and thats how I felt having sat through all 90 Minutes.

What I'd like to know is what the likes of Colin Salmon & Robbie Gee were thinking to be associated with this.

Set in a future London that looks a lot like, well, the city today. I'm guessing its supposed to say something about "Urban" life & the street. Ya get me!!

The film I assume is trying to tell the viewer that violence is bad however everything it says the opposite. A dog fight played out as a video game & theft is alright as long as its for your "Fam". Even the climatic fight at the films end is botched cop out.

As I said before we are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing before we see any decent Urban set films.

Don't bother to pay good money to see this don't even get it on DVD. Wait to it shown on TV hopefully at about 1am on a cold Wednesday night.

Absolutely rubbish.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=14198203

Walking out of a film half an hour before the end is a gesture I used to abhor. No matter how rancid a film appears to be, you should always see it through once you've started. Otherwise you're not quite in a position to properly criticise it.

I've changed my mind innit. Shank was profoundly unwatchable. I saw it in a theatre with maybe another 50 people; I could hear sighs and groans coming from all directions throughout the picture. Every macho posture, every tedious shouting match, every useless camera jerk, every inept stylistic manoeuvre seemed to audibly destroy a part of someone in there. Myself included, which is why I got the hell outta there.

I haven't seen Bullet Boy or Kidulthood, two other London-set youth violence epics which apparently bear a resemblance to this dirge, so I cannot compare them. I can only say that Shank is a stain on the good name of film. It consists of scene after scene of fantastically unappealing teen anti-heroes yelling at each other in grimy surroundings, punctuated by the occasional flashy chase scene or, in one instance, a dogfight captured in outdated computer graphics. Despite the digitally-enhanced nature of this scene, we don't actually see the dogs fighting, just about 5 minutes of close-ups of the deliriously screaming spectators - the film actually goes out of its way to be boring and repetitive; I simply cannot believe that this was an accident or oversight.

I kinda have a thing for Kaya Scodelario, and the promise of her presence may have been the deciding factor in making me go to see this mush. But she couldn't save it for me; she didn't even show up until the film had battered me senseless for over an hour, and by then I had already accepted that the useless script wasn't gonna give her a chance to display the spunk and sex appeal she delivered in Skins. This useless film wouldn't even let Kaya be spunky and sexy! I walked out shortly after she showed up, when it became clear she was there only for the lead actors to harass her a little bit.

I'm pretty much finished now. Thank you for reading. And please don't give the makers of Shank any of your hard-earned, or even hard-benefited cash. They must learn to try harder.