1 Day

Yay, just what the world was waiting for.. the first grime musical!! Yes, you heard it right.. the actors regularly break into profanity laden raps (complete with backing track) about how much they hate others and the variety of ways they're going to kill their enemies, and I have it say it works quite well. Apparently the cast wrote their own lyrics too, which makes it doubly impressive.

Less certain however, is the acting, which ranges from reasonable to just plain diabolical. I supposed that's what you get when you hire non-professional stars for 'authenticity'. Also, the movie is just one big chase sequence after the first quarter of an hour, with bizarre comedic asides involving Flash's three bitchy baby mothers and his senile but domineering granny.

It's completely unbelievable in every aspect, but somehow fun.. to a point. After the umpteenth foul-mouthed musical interlude, and yet another scene of Flash running from his pursuers, things get a little tiresome. They try to show some social realism as well, like a homeless young boy who has to steal for a living because his mum spends all her time at the local crack house, but this just comes over as window dressing.

I have a feeling that it will be fully appreciated by those who share the same music tastes as the participants, or supporters of yoof cinema who think the current crop are just too sanitised. Otherwise, it's just like an extended, after-the-watershed episode of Eastenders, with a dash of Dizzee Rascal (before his pop career started) thrown in for good measure. Does that sound like fun? If so, take a look. 5/10

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Flash (Dylan Duffus) receives a phone call from Angel (Yohance Watson), who's just been released from prison, telling him to re-pay quite a large loan in the next twenty four hours...or there'll be repercussions. So begins a desperate race against time to secure the money and all the while, try to dodge other problems in his life.

I'm glad 1 Day found it's way onto DVD, being as in the city it is filmed, where I live, Birmingham City Council found it in their wisdom to issue a ban on it in cinemas, for the terrifying fear that hordes of black youths may swarm to see it and get converted into gang members. Such petty, pompous over-reaction is what you can expect from the clueless people in power but eventually everything finds it's way into sight. Needless to say, being filmed around my stomping ground, it was fun to spot and pick out landmark locations and see it put on the map cinematically. But that's the most fun I did manage out of it.

At heart a tough, grimy urban thriller, the film also seems to have aspirations of being a musical. People walked out in droves over Sweeney Todd's musical numbers, but I found it more of a problem here. I know this is very much my personal opinion, but I felt the musical interludes ruined it and robbed it of some of it's dynamism, however authentic the harsh, gravelly lyrics and delivery were. It's your typical back-of-the-bus music and made a film already uncomfortably shoving the nastier aspects of black culture in your face harder to stomach. It's got everything right in terms of dialogue and delivery too, with the street slang and patois used by the main characters sounding very real too, but it doesn't make them any more likable or the experience any more enjoyable for anyone from the outside looking in.

The singing aside, 1 Day manages a very real and well realized harsh dose of real life...but if these are the kind of people you don't want to see in real life, it's just one you won't want to watch again. **

You could call this a 'hip-hopera', a mix of filmmaking and social work, or a shot in the arm for British independent cinema. Just don't call it Bugsy Malone with real bullets.

Sporting equal measures of guts and integrity, 1 Day is the latest project from writer-director Penny Woolcock, whose critically acclaimed CV encompasses everything from guerrilla-style films ('Macbeth On The Estate') to full-blown operatic adaptations (John Adams' controversial 'The Death Of Klinghoffer').

Those recalling the halcyon days of Channel 4 might also recall Woolcock's remarkable 'Tina Goes Shopping' from 1999, along with its follow-up, 'Tina Takes A Break'. Featuring lines like "Why is there a cow's head in the sink?!" and scenes in which a drug addict steals from his lover's handbag during a rowdy sex session, these bleakly funny dramas, shot on the most deprived estates in Leeds, make playwrite Jim Cartwright's 'Road' look like a teatime sitcom in comparison.

One of the factors that gives the pair of Tinas and their belated threequel Mischief Night a genuine edge over other 'urban' films is Woolcock's regular insistence on casting from the street ("no experience necessary!" as her fliers say) - sourcing her cast from local residents, and uncovering some real natural talent in the process. (Some of whom, like Tina's Kelli Hollis, have even gone on to star in things like 'Shameless.') It certainly proves there's more to community workshopping than just a bunch of hippies staging puppet shows about tolerance.

For 1 Day, Woolcock immersed herself in the Jamaican community in Birmingham, where she'd made 'Macbeth On The Estate' during the 1990s. "People scoot from London to Manchester or Glasgow and there's this big vibrant city in between that's completely ignored," she says. Then again, "I could have researched and shot this film in any town or city in the country, including 300 yards from where I live in London." As is often the case, the story behind the making of 1 Day sounds as intriguing as the film itself. Local rappers and musicians were sought out, then recalled for acting auditions. Lyrics were constructed around beats supplied by local producers, and a story based on real events organically emerged: a vivid, uncompromising saga of gangland warfare and drug dealing with "a clear moral message" states Woolcock, in which street hustler Flash (Dylan Duffus) desperately attempts to secure the money he owes his gang boss within 24 hours. On his tail is a rival gang, the cops, three bickering baby mothers - and Flash's churchgoing granny, played by the marvellous Monica Ffrench. Rather depressingly, it all ends up with a mass shoot-out in a Happy Shopper car park.

Superficially, comparisons might be drawn with another classic from the Channel 4 vaults, the documentary 'Feltham Sings' (2002), with whom 1 Day shares a producer in Amy Flanagan. Here, the poet Simon Armitage supplied young inmates with autobiographically-tailored lyrics to songs ranging from bearable to magnificent ("Your mum says she'll visit, and suddenly she'll can't/so you're sat for an hour in the corner like a caahnt"). In one instance, however, Armitage didn't have a say in things: Cass Galton's 'This Is Me' rap remains a high point of the show.

The difference here, of course, is that 1 Day's lyrics are entirely the rappers' own work. Due to the everyday syntax and rhythms of hip-hop and grime, it makes for a uniquely naturalistic musical, one featuring strikingly authentic and heartfelt performances from those with friends residing in the local graveyard.

Ironically, West Midlands police informed the crew that the area's crime rate had actually fallen during the filming, as everyone was so engrossed in the production; although this hasn't prevented Odeon and Vue cinemas in Birmingham from dropping it in the week of release, following, they say, discussions with the police. For their part, local police strongly deny any such conversations ever took place.

A treatment for a prequel to 1 Day called 'The Death Of El Presidente' has been prepared, along with 'Nobody Sleeps', a romance between a rapper and a soprano. Woolcock says she is "cautiously hopeful about making them both".

Poor acting this film could have been good it they just didn't have to break into a "rap" every couple minutes pure cringe! Keep away from this film it's a waste of time. Love a British film but this was so disappointing! The acting is terrible the defo tried to hard with this film and it's the worst film I've laid eyes on! I was expecting some decent film but turns out it was the worst watch I've ever seen! I get some people might enjoy it but wasn't for me hands down the most boring film Compared to other British gangster films shameful film! The can't rap to save the life it's so cringe ffs.

The film stereotypes black guys and families particularly West Indian families but I found it funny and enjoyed it. I think it had a good message in there, being a gangster is not all its hyped up to be and has serious life threatening consequences and there is no honour amongst thieves. Am a big hip-hop fan and was feeling the music from the female MC's in the film, not too sure about the male MC's though. The acting was a tad dodgy at times, especially the emotional parts, but overall a solid film with hopefully a positive message, don't do drugs (taking or selling), it ruins lives etc. Some UK media are trying to portray it as a film hyping up violence, drug dealing, gangster life etc, but I saw it for what it is, a film. Am black and my life is nothing like the guys in 1 Day. Watch it, you will either like it or hate it.