ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

GUENOT PHILIPPE Of course this is a lousy picture, as are most of recent crime films from UK, all from the Guy Ritchie's fashion. Lousy, lousy and lousier one than the other. But this one is far better if you consider the story and the characters, especially the ending which is totally unpredictable and in the pure film noir tradition. very brutal and shocking. Yes, I love this film especially for its ending that saves the whole thing. But besides this, the directing is absolutely awful with such lenghts, such as in the night club when you see people dancing in the dark long, long minutes long. I don't know if the director wanted to copy the DEER HUNTER mariage sequence between Meryl Streep and John Cazale - if my memory is good - but this night club sequence is totally useless. But to summarize, this little film noir is very weird in the fact that it is awful, lousy and very good in the same time.

willreemer Perhaps not quite Lock Stock but still an awesome British Gangster movie!! I was very surprised to see the low rating here certainly compared to some other British movies released lately, as this one is thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely up there with the likes of Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1 etc.. Instant classic!!!

Steve Archer OK first up. This film is clearly REALLY LOW BUDGET and I see from the credits of the director it's his first film and was made from a previous short film he made some years before. So going from a short to a feature is clearly a MASSIVE step up and over all I felt he did a pretty good job all being considered. Clearly having a bigger budget would have helped this film as they could have added more action, bigger named actors and better locations/extras, sound track and stunts etc. The DP has done a great job on this as it really helped the film feel edgy, dirty and the low budget feel really helped make it feel like a nasty bleak world! We are all going to Hoxton/Dalston darling!" this film ain't! :-) I personally thought the casting of Jamie Foreman was a master stroke as His dad used to be a real Hackney gangster and was in fact a hit man for the Krays for some years and KILLED A FAIR FEW PEOPLE FOR THEM. Foreman therefore lent the film a greater feel of realism than going for just another east end bad guy boss like other crime films have done. It was also a interesting part for Danny John Jules and bar his deleted extras scene in "Lock Stock" I haven't really seen him play that kind of role before or anything of that kind of low budget nature so I guess he and Foreman must have really seen something different in the realness of the script like for example Bobbie owing Foreman only £10k rather than say £250k which is more of a movie sum of money to kill someone over. In fact the fact he beat him to death himself for such a small sum of money was really shocking for me but again set up this kind of harsh and bleak, true London world. The movie does have it's flaws though it has to be said! There are far too many roles in the film (the cast seems pretty massive), there are clearly not enough extras in the night club which either means it was a real dive of a club or the film just didn't have enough money to really fill out the club scenes properly as they must have all cost money. A bit of both I would have thought. The trance music score wasn't really to my tast either but then I'm no trance fan so that's hard to judge the movie down for that one. Also the club scenes should have been edited a bit more as they did go on a bit. All in all I felt the director did a very good job on his first movie with room for improvement moving forward for future films. The Grind was a very gritty, real and hard depiction of a quickly changing part of the east end. This movie deserves it's place in the collection of gritty realistic low budget crime films. A pretty good job!

scottparkley I watched this film last night after watching EastEnders and I really enjoyed it. I've always been a fan of independent films and this is an intelligent film. It's idea is not complicated at all but smart at the same time and here lies its strength to me: The Idea. It's about the characters in a world of nightclubs and all the possible possibilities in our life that people create and the biggest (bad or good) changes they make. With all low budget films the acting is poor but I felt the lead was good - Gordon is one to watch for the future! Danny-John Jules plays the crafty Phil and Jamie Foreman was mesmerising as always and perhaps carried the film on his own at times. Catch it if you can!