Film Reviews

Bullet Boy

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Ashley Walters
• Details: UK/ 89 mins/ (16s)

Rapper and sometime member of So Solid Crew Ashley Walters (stage name Asher D) makes his starring debut in this roughly hewn but always compelling urban drama with a conscience. The very impressive Walters plays Ricky, a 19-year-old kid who has just been released from a detention centre. Although he's idolised by his 12-year-old brother Curtis (Luke Fraser, fantastic), Ricky is determined that he's not going to go back to jail. The sprawling streets of London aren't prepared to let him off the hook quite so easily and when his best mate, Wisdom (Leon Black) gets involved in a pointless feud with some rival gang members, Ricky has to decide where his loyalties lie - with his oldest but extremely volatile friend, or actually trying to escape and start afresh with his girlfriend, (Sharea-mounira Samuels).
Although the story of divided loyalty and breaking a cycle of violence is as old as cinema itself, talented writer-director Saul Dibb injects urgency and palpable anxiety into Bullet Boy. Skilfully etching the relationship between the two brothers without over-sentimentalising, the film has an inevitable whiff of tragedy about it from the opening scenes, yet never quite degenerates into melodrama. Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja (3D) supplies a moody, extremely atmospheric soundtrack which perfectly complements the air of tension that pervades almost every scene, but the doom laden performances of the two young leads makes Bullet Boy well worth a look.

Review by Garreth Murphy