A story of rival gangs of black youths in Birmingham, Penny Woolcock's film has its characters speak in a dense patois, and it rejects the wussy, bourgeois option of adding subtitles. In other ways, though, it isn't quite as committed to keeping things real. Not only is the drama a bit exaggerated, with the gang members wearing yellow and purple bandannas to help us tell them apart, but it's also interrupted occasionally by characters breaking into hip-hop numbers - in short, it's a musical. I suspect some of the young folk at whom this is aimed will judge it uncool. For me, though, the main weakness is that the film's biggest asset, its rough energy, fades away when the plot starts going round in circles.
15, 101