Anti-Social

Stars: Gregg Sulkin, Josh Myers, Meghan Markle, Christian Berkle, Richie Campbell, James Devlin, Andrew Shim, Sophie Colquhoun, Caroline Ford

Director: Reg Traviss

When in doubt while making your crime thriller, let tried and tried genre clichés lead the way.

Which seems to me to have been the guiding light for writer-director Reg Traviss loud, violent and relentlessly Channel Four-letter-word-spattered movie. (You don't need to take my word for it: says the British Board of Film Censors in awarding the film its well-deserved '15' certificate, 'very strong language, strong sex, sexual violence, violence, nudity').

Traviss conveniently describes his film as a coming of age thriller, inspired by several sets of real life and (sic) events and individuals, dramatized into a composite fictional story.

The story centres on two London brothers. Marcus (Josh Myers) is a career criminal who leads a violent smash-and-grab motorcycle gang who specialize in jewel store robberies. His younger sibling Dee (Gregg Sulkin) puts his two fingers up at society by painting the town as a graffiti artist seeking fame by limping in the footsteps of such self-promoting artistic icons as Banksy

And, inevitably, given the predictability of the screenplay, Dee finds himself caught up in his brothers criminal activities.

Good acting, like creative plotting, is not a key aspect of the film.

If theres a merit in the movie, its the smartly staged action. Traviss opens the film with a fast-moving, genuinely exciting jewel robbery in a shopping centre by Marcus motorcycle-riding gang and subsequent action sequences move fast and furious enough

Strong enough suspense is also generated when required but, in the final analysis, weve seen rather too much of it before.

Alan Frank

Hungary/UK 2015. UK Distributor: Miracle. Colour.
116 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 2, Swearing 3.

Review date: 02 May 2015