Adulthood

Stars: Noel Clarke, Scarlett Alice Johnson, Red Madrell, Adam Deacon, Femi Oyeniran, Jacob Anderson

Director: Noel Clarke

We're back in the West London ghetto streets again in this sequel to Kidulthood. Sam (writer-director Clarke) has done his time for killing Trife at the end of the previous film and, more than six years on, comes back to the mean, mean streets of home to find that Trife's friends and relations have been keeping their vengeance warm.

All the expected elements - savage kick-beatings, drug dealers, knives and guns, plus instantly accessible sex - crop up, as Sam endures a busier, and no less dangerous 24 hours than Kiefer Sutherland on TV.

Clarke has a keen ear for modern multi-racial street language - everyone is 'bloods' and talks in expletives and patois - but his young cast experience limited success in delivering it. Some of the boys over-act, while most of the girls are pretty ropy, notably Johnson, out of her depth away from EastEnders.

Continuity, meanwhile, is a joke - Sam goes in one tube station, takes a trip and emerges at the same station; his shoulder wound switches sides - and the direction goes split-screen happy towards the end, when an entire armed response unit turns up in response to a phone call about a mugging. No, glittering futures fail to beckon for most of those involved here, although Brian Tufano's photography is as exemplary as ever, and devotees of Brit crime flicks will note a fleeting appearance by Danny Dyer as an aggressive yuppie giving our tarnished hero a hard time.

David Quinlan

UK 2007. UK Distributor: Pathe. Fujicolor.
99 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 2, Swearing 3.

Review date: 14 Jun 2008