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Touches You

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Blistering performances.

In December 1998 young independent film maker Shane Meadows, soon to turn 26, began filming on this dramatised semi-autobiographical feature. Many years on Meadows is now considered one of the foremost artists of British independent cinema - largely a credit to 'This is England', the project which took so much out of the creator that he felt it necessary to check into a clinic to recuperate prior to it's release. The 2006 film, which was a critical and award winning success, was a development of the themes, characters and style introduced here in 'A Room for Romeo Brass'.Through an endearing prologue starring a bag of chips we are introduced to Romeo (Andrew Shim) and his best friend 'Knocks' (Ben Marshall), two midlands boys on the verge of adolescence, representative of a young Meadows and his co-writer, Paul Fraser. The boys have come through tarnished early years together and they share a bond which grants each the confidence to act older than the children that they are. Confidence verges on cockiness with Knocks and leads the pair into a park scuffle with two older lads. Morell (Paddy Considine), a chance bystander, is drawn into the fold as the hero who defends the young duo and breaks up the fight. Morell is 'overcome with love' when he meets Romeo's sister Ladine (Vicky McClure, who would later play Shim's love interest 'Lol' in the 'This is England' film and series). Learning no lesson from the park episode, Knocks plays a prank to make Morell look the fool in front of Ladine. Morell immediately pursues his love and the audience laughs along as he is branded a 'gizoid' by Ladine. It is not long though before the laughing stops, as Knocks is left alone for just a few moments with Morell's darker side.The gripping layered performance of Morell by Considine makes it difficult to believe that this was the actor's first movie role. A number of collaborations with Meadows followed and undoubtedly inspired his own award winning directorial debut in 2011, the beautifully gritty 'Tyrannosaur'. Considine is one in a cast of hot picks by Meadows. The depth of every individual shines through in a real testament to the actors but also to the script from the master of British characters. The most enjoyable aspect of this film is that you are watching real people in real situations, presented in a way that highlights familiar faults and flaws. Meadows is better than black and white packaging of good and bad. Here a hero quickly becomes a villain and in turn a villain becomes a hero but there is no naive suggestion that these transitions are final. Just as in 'This is England' we learnt that the Combo's behaviour is beyond his control, here we pity Morall, psychologically scarred by frequent beatings from his father and by being left all alone following his later death from illness.The foundations for the later masterpiece are set out: A young male protagonist, a reflection of Meadows' memory, projects a tough guy persona as a defense mechanism formed to overcome the lack of a present father. He falls in with an emotionally damaged substitute father figure and previously strong friendships are pushed to the limits. Disturbing physical violence is witnessed first hand before finishing with a calm bedroom chat with Mum to set us on the right track again. Where 'This is England' has the edge is in the natural development of these elements, the horror factor of the racism theme and the greatly enhanced production quality.

After being a fan of This Is England for many years, I decided to go back and watch Meadows' other films. First up was this, and I would argue that it is almost on par with This Is England. A great, believable story with great actors. I find it more close to heart as it is filmed in suburban England, which is where I grew up which is a theme I experience with his other films too, it is refreshing to have a normal story instead of Hollywood films. The characters, setting and story are all realistic and believable, it is something that any two friends in your street could experience. The only reason why This Is England is slightly better, is because there is a more hard-hitting ending and more interesting characters in that film. But that is totally fine as this is one of Meadows' earlier films with presumably a lower budget. Sure, some of the accents sound comedic but as most of the actors where new to acting in this film, it is very impressive. It feels like a home movie, in a good way and I look forward to watching more of Meadows' work, he is definitely one of the UK's best. A solid 8 out of 10 stars.

I was really looking forward to this one, after thoroughly enjoying Dead man shoes, which was a great film....The movie starts and the intro segments begin to play, introducing the two boys Romeo and Gavin. My first thought was how terrible the actor who played Gavin was (Ben Marshall). He appeared to be unnatural, annoying and generally sounded like he was reading off a script. But i was willing to look past that...A good 25 minutes in and i'm still waiting for something interesting to happen. Morell (Paddy Considine) had been introduced and had appeared to have developed a strange relationship with the boys, and i was left wondering why the boys parents would even let their boys be associated with this strange man, who appeared to be 'not quite the full ticket' in the first place.The scene in the clothes shop where Morell was dressed in a shell suit delivering gifts to Romeo's sister was cringe worthy, and there was no way in hell that his sister would have had anything to do with this weirdo after that performance, which makes the film seem even more unrealistic when she agrees to go on a date with him...The kissing scene was even more far fetched, and this just wouldn't happen in the real world, even if she did feel slightly sorry for him...The film takes a sinister turn shortly after this and provides the first bit of action...My heart skipped a beat when Morell pulls out a knife on Gavin, and it was a quite a random shock. I thought 'ok' this film is going somewhere now...But when Romeo returns from the ice cream truck and finds his 'best' friend crying with his head in his hands, there is no way that romeo would just disregard it the way he did, considering he had been so loyal to him from the start. He would have demanded to know what was wrong and would have been suspicious that Morell had done something...I thought Morell would start terrorising Gavin after this but nothing happened. I guess his revenge was taking Romeo away from him...The film just plods along with minimal action and you are left wondering why Romeo has abandoned his friend so easily and why he is so reluctant to even have anything to do with him. And i was also left wondering why his parents had not wised up to the situation and why they were still letting romeo hang around with Morell.When Morell turns on romeo, after a failed attempt to bed his sister (which nearly resulted in rape), and proceeds to follow him around its obvious how the film will end (Frank Harper saving the day).The scene at the end, where Morell is in Gavin's front garden refusing to leave, and seeking revenge is flawed. Is there no police in this town??? The first thing you would do if there was a psycho waiting outside your house is call the police. Not go out there and confront him yourself.Romeo's dad arrives and gives Morell a minor beating. A very minor beating, considering this man had attempted to rape his daughter, and attack his son, and then stalk him.I was left feeling unsatisfied after that.Although i have not said many good things about this film, i will say that i did enjoy the rare bits of action the movie provided, and the general story line was good. It just had too many flaws for my liking and was slow in parts.The final scene in the garden was horrible, and the magic show was unfunny and yet again quite cringe worthy.This film is good in parts, buts lets face it, its no classic.I'm guessing these high reviews are from die hard Shane Meadows fans, who will appreciate anything he does.5 out of 10 from me.

Romeo and Gavin are schoolboys, friends and neighbours living in the suburbs of Nottingham in the Midlands. Gavin has a spinal problem that causes him to limp, while Romeo has domestic problems and is prone to his temper. One day they meet adult Morell, who helps them beat off some bullies and gives them a lift home. Morell takes a shine to Romeo's sister and starts hanging around with the boys but he is slightly unhinged and his friendship with Romeo threatens to split the friendship of the two boys.I watched This is England recently and it encouraged me to look back across other Shane Meadows films that I hadn't seen either for years or at all. Shamefully, this film fell into the latter camp but thanks to the BBC's summer of British cinema I got the chance to see it recently. Typically it is set in Nottingham with a world and characters that Meadows had experience of and as a result it is more convincing that perhaps the main thrust of the narrative has a right to be. The two characters of Romeo and Gavin are both well written and convincing and mostly they move the film along, even though I wasn't totally convinced that Morell would be able to get the type of relationships he got before everyone realised what he was about. Other than this slight issue though, the film does engage and it is mainly thanks to the acting.Meadows directs his cast well while also making good use of music and the movement of the camera. Shim is excellent in the title role and is very convincing in his performance. Marshall was less so; OK he had a bit stiffer character and is on the side of the story as the film goes on but he is very much secondary to Shim. Dominating the film though with an astonishing debut is Paddy Considine. He is amusing to children in the way some adults can be, but he never lets us forget that he is more than just a bit child-like and that unhinged is a polite description. In smaller supporting roles are McClure, Higgins, Harper and Hall, who are all good. Apart from adding the weight of his name as support, Hoskins does little but I suppose for the support alone he deserves credit.Overall then this is an enjoyable and quite disturbing film. The narrative offered me a few problems in the extremes but the natural and engaging delivery covered for them, while Meadows brings roundly convincing performances from his cast, not least of which are two strong debuts from Shim and Considine.