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This Is England

This Is England (2007)

July. 27,2007
|
7.7
|
NR
| Drama Crime

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

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Zlatica
2007/07/27

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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Bob
2007/07/28

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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Candida
2007/07/29

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

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Darin
2007/07/30

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

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BA_Harrison
2007/07/31

I'm English. I turned 15 in 1983. It wasn't a great time for me. Taking a trip down memory lane with This Is England didn't seem like a particularly appealing idea, but with director Shane Meadows (Dead Man's Shoes) in charge, I was sure I would be impressed regardless of the subject matter. As I expected, the general atmosphere of the film is bleak and depressing, the disaffected characters spewing anger and hatred. Thankfully, Meadows' superb handling of his material, and his exceptional cast's wonderful performances, make this look back at not-so-great Britain compelling viewing. And somewhere, in amongst all of the violence and emotional turmoil, there is even a faint glimmer of hope.Based on Meadow's own personal experiences growing up in England in the '80s, the film is steeped in realism, the era perfectly recreated in all of its miserable glory. Thomas Turgoose puts in a very impressive turn as central character Shaun, the young schoolboy who falls in with a gang of skinheads, but for me, the standout performance comes from Stephen Graham as bitter ex-con skinhead Combo, a thuggish brute whose own personal issues have made him into a volatile racist prone to explosive outbursts of violence. And yet, despite all of the despicable things he says and does, Graham's character actually warrants a modicum of pity, the bloke clearly a product of his own troubled upbringing — it's a memorably moving performance in another solid film from Meadows.

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SnoopyStyle
2007/08/01

It's July 1983. Shaun Fields is small in stature with a giant chip on his shoulder. He lost his beloved father in the Falklands. He gets thrown out by the Pakistani shopkeeper and gets into a fight in school. He is befriended by Woody and his gang. They get into minor mischief and friendly mayhem. Shaun gets Smell as his girlfriend. His mother won't buy him Dr. Martens. The group is disrupted by Combo returning from prison. Combo takes over leadership as he pushes his white power agenda. Woody, Jamaican Milky, and others leave but Shaun falls for Combo. Combo takes the group to a National Front meeting with the call "This is England".The kid is amazing and no punches are pulled. Shane Meadows puts his soul into this. The music is terrific. All the characters are vivid and specific highlighted by Combo and Woody. There is a sparse power and intensity to the story.

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IanPhillips
2007/08/02

This Is England is most definitely one of the very best British films of the twenty-first century, and for me ranks as Shane Meadows most outstanding to date. Meadows draws on his own personal experiences as a skinhead during the early 1980's. This Is England is set during the summer months of 1983 at the time of "Thatcher's Britain" and indeed the era of the skinheads, punk, racism and fascism.Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is a lonely 11 year old kid growing up on a rough council estate in the North Of England. He is grieving the sudden loss of his father after he was killed in the horrific Falklands War. Encountering incessant bullying at school, Shaun meets a gang of friendly, multi-cultural, dope-smoking skinheads, headed by Woody (Joseph Gilgunn) who immediately are drawn to his sadness and confusion and subsequently take the boy under their wing. However when one of the gang's old members Combo, (Stephen Graham) a vicious, racist thug and bully, is released from prison, Shaun is manipulated by Combo's way of thinking and racist attitude and turns into a thug himself, convinced he would be making his late Dad proud. After Combo brutally beats up Shaun's friend Milky (Andrew Shim) and exposes his own deep vulnerability and unbalanced mental state, Shaun comes back down to earth (and his senses), realising the lifestyle he'd been leading was not really for him, nor would it have made his Dad proud.Though the first half of This Is England is touchingly funny, drawing on the allure and fun of being in a gang, the second half soon makes way for a much darker, raw and gritty nature, with many violent episodes, highlighting the brutally stark racism that existed at the time (and still does unfortunately!. Shane Meadows shrewdly evokes the total working-class despair of "Thatcher's Britain", capturing the era impeccably well and is all impressively authentic in detail.Like every other of Shane Meadows absolutely superb films, the acting and dialogue is astutely naturalistic, drawing you in from the opening scene. Most outstanding of all is the immensely talented youngster Thomas Turgoose who's almost stark performance never once shrinks from being anything but powerful and convincing. Indeed the cast are all thoroughly excellent that includes another notably powerful turn from the ever-brilliant Stephen Graham as Combo; Joseph Gilgunn as the lovable, kindly rogue Woody who is the leader of the gang that Shaun first joins and who also refuses to be brainwashed by Combo's unhinged way of thinking and racial hatred; Jo Hartley as Shaun's mum Cynth who upon meeting the gang headed by Woody becomes charmed by them , after having had serious reservations when first seeing her young son with a shaved head; Andrew Shim as the friendly Milky; Vicky McClure as the more sensible, level-headed Lol and Rosamund Hanson as the eccentric but likable Smell.Truly an out and out masterpiece, This Is England is an often funny, often shocking and often deeply moving portrait of a moment in British cultural history.Ian Phillips

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tomgillespie2002
2007/08/03

Shane Meadows' This is England, like the title suggests, is a bare- knuckled, fearlessly honest depiction of England. This isn't any old England, but Thatcher's angry, graffiti-ridden, skinheaded England, a time of needless war, poverty, and, key to the film, racial intolerance. Meadows' loosely autobiographical film lays it's anger out for all to see from the off, as the camera lingers on a council-estate wall scrawled with 'Maggie is a t**t'. But there's humour here also, and heart.We witness the majority of the film through the eyes of Shaun Fields (Thomas Turgoose - his character's name a thinly-disguised spin on that of the director's), a ragged, bullied loner, who lives alone with his mother after his father is killed in the Falklands. Walking home one evening from school, he is pitied by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), a Dr. Martens-wearing skinhead who, along with his friends, enjoys some harmless vandalism taken out on derelict properties. Woody takes him under his wing, even buying him a Ben Sherman and braces, and shaving his head. His mum doesn't approve, but at least he's being looked after. All is rosy until Woody's old friend Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison.His time in prison taught Combo that England is no longer what it once was, and is now overrun by immigrants taking away jobs from honest folk like himself and his bare-chested, meat-head friend Banjo (George Newton). He draws a line for Woody's gang - those who want to join him on his crusade to help restore England to it's glory days, and those who don't. Woody quickly points out that Combo is out of line, especially in the presence of his Jamaican friend Milky (Andrew Shim). But when Woody leaves, Shaun stays, and is sucked in by Combo's charisma, attending right-wing rallies in countryside pubs and smashing up the local shop owned by a Pakistani man.Like Elem Klimov's Come and See (1985), the child protagonist does the remarkable thing of ageing throughout. Not a physical transformation like Florya, but in presence. He evolves effortlessly from a boy whining at his mum in a shoe shop for not buying him a pair of Dr. Martens, to a foul-mouthed, brainless thug gobbling up everything that is fed to him by those around him. Meadows makes it clear that there are two types of skin-heads - those who embrace the style and image influenced by black music such as ska, and those bigoted, entitled types, channelling anger simply because it's there. Combo is obviously the second kind, but he has own dimensions too.Stephen Graham's performance is spectacular and genuinely terrifying. Anyone who has grown up in England will know the type; the type thankfully I've only ever come across when they get on a train and quickly draw attention to themselves. His words fly like scouse venom, his every line punctured by a swear word. But his protection of Shaun and his occasional child-like vulnerability means that there's sympathy to be given somewhere. Like all great child performances, Turgoose remains a child throughout, avoiding precociousness even in his most emotional scenes. And it's 12 year-old Shaun that remains the film's anchor, our wide-eyed window into innocence manipulated.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

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