A Man Who Delivers

What's it like being a drug dealer ? Probably like appearing in a Michael Mann movie I imagine , That's the impression I got from Jamie Jesett's short documentary featuring a man who when he's not working as an interior designer is apprehensively waiting for a text from someone asking if they can come over and sell them some illegal substances . As Bob mentions it doesn't give great insight or motives in the life of a drug dealer but I guess that people are involved in any black market due to the profits involved . You corner a market of supply and demand and you can set your own price

I do have a slight problem with this documentary and that is it seems a little bit exaggerated . The dealer spends all day driving around London delivering drugs so either business is too good to be true or conveniently we're shown an atypical day where an interior designer doesn't need to do any interior design . It's never revealed if this interior design business is just set up to launder money and this is never brought up so it's not really a revelatory type of documentary . Going back to the Michael Mann connection London is portrayed as a futurist looking city of glass and light as you'd expect from one of his movies . Dare I say it's a case of style over illegal substance ?

This film is based off of real interviews with a London drug dealer who, understandably, isn't named or shown in this film. His words are his words but spoken by an actor, while on the screen we see the texts from customers asking if he can pop by or meet them for a drink etc. Not being able to feature the man or shown the interviews is a bit of a problem and it is one that the film never shakes off even if it does work out a way to make it work.

The camera focuses on the travelling around London aspect of this "job" so visually it is mostly cars, reflections in windows etc – nicely done to avoid being too dull or too deliberately arty, but still not too much. The text messages on the screen add something for the eyes but once you have seen a few then they continue to do the same job. The written interviews are well acted out by Hancock, who is pretty natural and convincing. The words are engaging and do at least present another face to what we imagine when we think of a drug dealer, however we don't really push deep into the person.

All told it is an interesting little film with a sold construction, just a shame that it doesn't give too much insight even if it does generally engage.