ill manors review

Ill Manors Review

“Ill Manors” was directed by Ben Drew or Plan B to most of us. He is a rapper singer known by the track “She Said” he also played a part in Adulthood, Harry Brown, 4.3.2.1 and The Sweeny. Although he directed Ill Manors, he also played the role of the cab driver, which took the main character away from the hood which was a smart move on his part. Also Plan B was also rapping throughout the story line which made it seem like his own movie. For a low budget film the directing was top notch, which made us now look at Ben Drew as a serious director.

Riz Ahmed plays Aaron, a teen who has grown up in a care home, throughout the film it looked like he didn’t have his own mind until he found the baby on the train aborted by Kata, played by Natile Press, an eastern European who is forced to be a sex object and tries to run away from that life. Ed Skrein plays Ed another youth that comes out of a care home. He doesn’t use his brain a lot and is very rushed into making decisions. To be fair, they are all pretty decent actors, but not at the quality of Asher D and Kano and far Idris Alba.

The characters were in abundance and did their job, because Marcel’s gang looked like a proper gang that a lot of people on the road would think it was a real gang. Also the extras like the ones at the pub made the movie look more realistic and something that could happen in real life.

The plot is about 4 drug dealers who all get involved in their respective problems, but different dealers deal with it differently. There are also fiend’s who need their quick fix of crack and will go to any lengths to get it, whether it is killing, stealing or selling their bodies to men. Also, joining gangs to look good, until it all goes up in flames, literally. The plot is mainly what money drugs and power can do to people in a nut shell. The streets of London are also a major part in this film as it is based in London, Ghetto London.

The genre of the film is a British urban drama based in London, so I thought it could maybe be about something like Adulthood, Top Boy, and Bullet Boy etc. I was expecting fighting, war, drugs and money. I think I was right because Ill Manors was just like the other films made by Noel Clarke. The mood was an eerie mood because it always seemed dark. The slow rapping kind of like poetry made the tension increase throughout the movie.

The sound track was mostly Plan B rapping about the story and lives of the characters, this worked well due to crazy lives of every single one of the main characters, also there were no mainstream songs on the movie to show it is not a movie for the light hearted. The music was non diegetic for most of the movie if not all of it, but the music was parallel as it was dark music just like the movie. The music was also quite a bit of “gangsta” music due to the contents of the movie and the things the characters were embarking on. I was expecting this type of music because most of the British urban dramas have that type of sound track. Like Adulthood, Ill Manors have a sound track available to download and listen to.

The audience is for youth from about 15- 35 even though the age rating was an 18. It is about the life that a lot of youth find interesting so they would watch it also it is targeted at C1-E psychographs as that is low middle and working class people.

I would recommend it for people who understand how it is to be in the predicament of some of the people there or people who are interested about that life.  It could also be used as a deterrent for people who want to be in that life because they think it is cool.