Duff, dodgy geezers

Out of Depth

WRITER-director Simon Marshall's debut film, made in 1998, is based, it says, on a true story.

Certainly it's a cautionary tale - a warning to boys of upward social mobility who fail to abandon working-class loyalties. But it's also a depressingly unambi-tious addition to the endless string of Britgang dramas, all glottal stops and geezerspeak.

Sean Maguire plays Paul Nixon, a nice south London boy making good in a Soho graphics design outfit when he unwisely hires an enforcer (Nicholas Ball) to give "a clump" to the pub yob who peed on his barmaid mum (Rita Tushingham). The hit man fatally exceeds his brief, and the hard men swoop on naive Paul like refuse collectors and "persuade" him to act as a drugs courier. Bad goes to worse, and the crime baron (Leigh Lawson) of suburbia puts a contract out on him.

There are posters at the airport saying The Euro Is Coming, but you'd be hard pressed to find many contemporary elements in the script that break away from the stale stereotypes of Krayland. More social detail might have compensated for a squeezed budget: but even minor details ring false - passports, for instance, no longer require profession or occupation to be listed.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.