Marcus Stead

The concept of the film is easy enough to understand. A young lad’s father is killed fighting in the Falklands, and he goes off the rails as he struggles to adjust to life without him. Unfortunately, that’s where the depth of the plot ends.
Fans of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes will enjoy this film for the chance to spot anachronisms, since it was set in July 1983. Two things in particular stand out. Firstly, there are a few scenes where the characters are sat in front of the TV watching Blockbusters. A few real anoraks will note that the programme didn’t begin its long run until August 1983, but more importantly, the clips they used clearly came from the late 80s or early 90s, since the computer graphics and set wouldn’t have been possible using the technology of the time.
Secondly, there were shots of street lighting that wouldn’t have been in use until a good four years later. There were also quite a few shots of very old cars, dating back to the late 1960s. Plausible, but fairly unlikely to still be in use by this stage.
The plot itself doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. Director Shane Meadows wants to convey the message that skinhead culture has its roots in Jamaican ska culture, before being adopted by the National Front, but not enough effort is made to explain this to the uneducated.
At the beginning, a 12-year-old boy called Shaun gets into a fight at school after another, slightly older boy makes insulting remarks about his late father.
On his way home, and feeling a bit down in the dumps, he meets a skinhead gang, consisting entirely of older lads, who take him on board and turn him into one of them.
The gang, who are on the wild side but show no signs of racism, even including Milky, a black character among their gang. They are led by the sympathetic and likeable Woody, who becomes something of a paternalistic figure to Shaun in the first half of the film.
Things start to go badly wrong when Woody’s much older friend Combo is released from prison after serving a three-year prison sentence.
Combo immediately reassumes control of the gang and orders them all around his flat, where he proceeds to make a subtly racist speech. He doesn’t go as far as to condemn all immigrants, and even seduces Milky into liking his ideas, but some of the smarter members of the gang, especially Woody and the female members, look uneasy at what he is saying.
Combo’s speech ends with him calling for the gang to fight to get their country back, and he draws a line in the floor with his spit and orders anyone who is not onside to leave. This causes a split in the gang, so Woody and the smarter members leave the room.
After this point, the second half of the film is all about brainwashing Shaun into National Front culture. Given an extra hour, this could have panned out into a believable and brutally real account of NF culture in the early 80s. Yes, it’s clear Shaun has “got in with the wrong crowd”, but we never really get to see the extent to which he has been sucked in by the NF’s core beliefs. The second hour could have become something greater, but it all felt very rushed. The themes and issues were just not given the time to develop. Perhaps the budget was running out.
The film ends with Combo smoking marijuana before beating Milky unconscious, and then seeks Shaun’s help to get him to hospital after realising the seriousness of what he’s done after calming down. We never find out whether Milky recovers, but it seems unlikely. Shaun then realises, without saying anything, the unpleasant nature of the crowd he had got in with, and knows deep down this is not how his father would want him to live his life. The film ends with Shaun throwing his England flag into the sea.
Huge credit must be given to the excellent Thomas Turgoose for his portrayal of Shaun as a cocky and confident yet easily manipulated young lad, somewhat ahead of his time. Joe Gilgun as Woody often deserves a mention. Rough and ready on the outside, yet scratch the surface and we soon see a fatherly figure with a strong moral compass, who expects the others to follow his lead.
What could have been a much better film has let itself down due to a lack of time (and, one suspects, a small budget). However, anyone over the age of 35 will enjoy the more-or-less realistic trip back to 1983.
Despite the very obvious problems of the estate on which the film is set, there is a certain innocence about it. Being part of Woody’s gang brings with it a sense of belonging and a strong moral code, despite instances of petty crime. The female members also add something important to the gang, as a sort of restraining influence on some of their excesses.
Growing up on an estate such as this and being part of Woody’s gang would have been a far safer experience than being there today, with the booze-fuelled drug and knife culture that would no doubt exist there now.