Ill Manors is the directorial debut of Plan B (aka. Ben Drew) and is reportedly based on parts of real life experiences that the singer had when growing up in London. How much of it has been exaggerated upon is anyones guess, but it surely makes the story more intriguing.
The film follows a group of interconnected characters and shows how seemingly random events can bring them together in a cruel twist of fate. Aaron (Riz Ahmed) is a young drug dealer who is at odds with his hedonistic lifestyle. Ed (Ed Skrein) is Aaron's partner, who is completely hot-headed and has an extremely short temper. Michelle (Anouska Mond) is a crack-head who prostitutes herself for drugs. Katya (Natalie Press) is a pregnant Russian immigrant who prostitutes herself to men who like the company of pregnant ladies. Jake (Ryan de la Cruz Indiana) is a prepubescent teenager who tries to score drugs from Marcel (Nick Sager) but winds up being sucked into his gang. Kirby (Keith Coggins) is an ageing ex-con and drug dealer who is humiliated by his former dealer, Chris (Lee Allen)...
I could go on but I don't want to give too much away, as telling you how these characters are related would be giving away too much of the plot.
This opening to Ill Manors starts off promising enough, with a blazing soundtrack over some stunning visuals of the gritty urban London. Every time a new character is introduced, we are treated to a chorus of rap telling their backstory over a montage of their earlier life. Situations, such as drug dealing and prostitution are played out so realistically, that sometimes I found it hard to look at the screen. And it manages to do all of this while including some humour, mainly courtesy of Keith Coggin's character - forcing a rival drug dealer to strip off after dealing in his "turf" and getting some underage girls a "drinky-poos" being two prime examples.
The part of the film that I was particularly impressed with was that it doesn't promote violence and drug culture and being the 'right' answer. It does come across as a slight bit preachy, but it isn't as bad as films such as Harry Brown.
A nod towards this is when a character smokes cocaine for the first time and then claims, "See, it didn't kill me!" - that is before she is shot accidentally in the middle of a gang shooting.
However, the narrative soon starts to drag as the film has to split it's time over too many story lines happening at once. The film does throw some interesting curveballs along the way as we find out how certain characters interact, but it felt like a lot of the film could have been trimmed down to keep it going at a breakneck speed to keep it as interesting as the opening.
The direction from Ben Drew is competent, although some scenes felt a bit standard without anything making them pop out. As a writer, he needs to improve on fleshing out his characters and giving them all a character arc in order for us, as the audience, to truly care about them - especially when something tragic happens to them. Because of this, some characters feel left on the sidelines, particularly the supposed protagonist, Aaron, who ends up coming across as flat and frankly, quite boring.
So, overall Ill Manors is a fairly decent debut by the first-time director. The first half hour of the film really cements his writing and directing style within the gritty British crime drama mould, but there isn't a lot of substance under the style.
**½ / *****
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