Hackney's Finest (2014)

the audience applauded

Sadly Over-hyped

Powerful

Excellent adaptation.

In the gritty, swarming, multicultural streets of London, a dealer's regular day goes down the loo in a high-paced, quick-witted barrage of bullets. I most loved the Jamacian-Welsh bad boys Tony and B, with their mix of comic relief and their bad-ass moves. Watch out for Jane's tension-blitzer moments. Was surprisingly moved by what the character Asif brought to the story. Recommended.

I'm giving it 5 from 10 simply because it's from my old life and it's good to see some representation(wow, apparently that's a proper word. Plot circuit in a courier office in east London my ARSE. The main "character" and his 'colleagues' display an unbelievable level of ineptitude and do not convey any "plot" courier circuit in London, England. I am okay with some scope for messing about (dramatic license,etc). But, the main character would not be allowed near any real 'plot' circuit that has EVER existed in an east,west,north or south London office(unless the owner liked magic mushrooms more than money which is highly unlikely).It's is just sh*t that actually sort of but didn't really happen 20 years ago and it doesn't qualify as a "Movie" or work on any level. Good effort but must try harder. What about what the REAL characters that work the courier circuit, shame you don't know who they are or how their lives outweigh this tosh.

This is a strange hybrid of a film; on one hand it is quite a brutal London gang, drug and crime tale - with shooters. On the other it is actually quite a well realised dark comedy. I decided to suspend belief for ninety minutes and see what happened.It is all about Sirus who is a mini cab controller, a seemingly nice guy and a drug dealer. He sells some of his gear to Welsh Yardies who drive up from the valleys for their stuff . There is also a particularly nasty cop - Priestly who is more rotten than a South American Junta, but also has a way with words that is both profane and actually very amusing. I would not want a parking ticket from him. He is on to Sirus and does not use the rule book in any way that a normal cop would recognise.There is also 'casual racism' which may cause offence even where done for laughs, there is some graphic depictions of violence and there is a lot of shooting. Despite the plot errors and some less than savoury scenes I still found myself laughing and getting completely involved with all the characters. There is also a gang of stereotyped Russian meat heads who were all brilliant - even down to personalised phone rings. All in all this was ninety minutes that just flew by, and as such I wish I had seen this sooner.

Normally I wouldn't stoop to reviewing or even watching one of the endless glut of embarrassingly poor mockney gangster romps that have tainted the British film industry ever since Guy Ritchie decided to give birth to said genre, but in this case, given the believable authenticity and blindingly scripted nature of said venture; I'll make an exception. Smack is the drug of choice in this tale, and likable user Cyrus plays the doped up protagonist finding himself on the receiving end of a particularly vicious and shamelessly corrupt detective looking to manipulate him into delivering a mammoth stash of brown. Fortunately Cyrus has sterling backup in the form of a pair of welsh gangsters who provide a wealth of snappy dialogue and brutish ballistics. Adding to the comedic energy are an equally deranged mob of Russians who the detective calls in to balance the odds. Every other character has their own podium of eccentricity on which to shine, and grimily they do. Naturally, there is foul language aplenty, but deployed in all the right places for a change, and the frequent incidents of gunplay are air- punchingly superb.