100 Streets (15.)
Directed by Jim O'Hanlon.
Starring Idris Elba, Gemma Arteron, Charles Creed-Miles, Kierston Wareing, Franz Drameh and Ken Stott. 95 mins.
On paper this film has a number of things going against it. It's a London based drama. It has a multi-strand narrative that follows three vaguely connect different stories, a notoriously difficult concept to pull off. And it's got Idris Elba in it. If he is in possession of a BS detector he hasn't read the manual properly because, outside of his animation voice over work and TV projects, it has an uncanny for steering him towards underwhelming projects.
The film wants to offer a microcosm of London life, from the top to the bottom. It is true to the reality of life in the capital in that the middle classes get squeezed. At the top we have the marital problems of celebrity couple ex England Rugby captain Elba, and Arterton, former actress. At the bottom we have tower block bad boy Kingsley (Drameh) who wants to get out of his drug dealing lifestyle and has a talent for expression, that the film can't find a way to express. He finds himself being mentored by wandering street thespian Stott, who can see the talent within him.
In the middle is black cab driver Creed-Miles and his wife Wareing, who struggle along and want to adopt a kid. While the other tales interconnect, they are largely shunned by the rest of the cast and the film itself for long periods, as it follows the glamour and danger of the other tales. A frustrating choice because they were the only two I had any interest or feelings for.
There were eight million stories in the Naked City, but within these 100 streets there doesn't seem to be one decent tale to go between them. If you want to offer a slice of life, real life would seem to be an essential ingredient, but there not enough of it in the mix here. And whatever realism the film achieves is sabotaged by heavy handed narrative signifier: the moment the cabby reluctantly takes one last fare because he accidentally left the yellow light on; the moment a spurned lover leaves a book of photos on a doorstep. The film practically bangs a gong to make sure we get the portents. It is set around Battersea but Holloway might have been more appropriate as Hollow is the way most of the story telling rings.
Directed by Jim O'Hanlon.
Starring Idris Elba, Gemma Arteron, Charles Creed-Miles, Kierston Wareing, Franz Drameh and Ken Stott. 95 mins.
On paper this film has a number of things going against it. It's a London based drama. It has a multi-strand narrative that follows three vaguely connect different stories, a notoriously difficult concept to pull off. And it's got Idris Elba in it. If he is in possession of a BS detector he hasn't read the manual properly because, outside of his animation voice over work and TV projects, it has an uncanny for steering him towards underwhelming projects.
The film wants to offer a microcosm of London life, from the top to the bottom. It is true to the reality of life in the capital in that the middle classes get squeezed. At the top we have the marital problems of celebrity couple ex England Rugby captain Elba, and Arterton, former actress. At the bottom we have tower block bad boy Kingsley (Drameh) who wants to get out of his drug dealing lifestyle and has a talent for expression, that the film can't find a way to express. He finds himself being mentored by wandering street thespian Stott, who can see the talent within him.
In the middle is black cab driver Creed-Miles and his wife Wareing, who struggle along and want to adopt a kid. While the other tales interconnect, they are largely shunned by the rest of the cast and the film itself for long periods, as it follows the glamour and danger of the other tales. A frustrating choice because they were the only two I had any interest or feelings for.
There were eight million stories in the Naked City, but within these 100 streets there doesn't seem to be one decent tale to go between them. If you want to offer a slice of life, real life would seem to be an essential ingredient, but there not enough of it in the mix here. And whatever realism the film achieves is sabotaged by heavy handed narrative signifier: the moment the cabby reluctantly takes one last fare because he accidentally left the yellow light on; the moment a spurned lover leaves a book of photos on a doorstep. The film practically bangs a gong to make sure we get the portents. It is set around Battersea but Holloway might have been more appropriate as Hollow is the way most of the story telling rings.
