Shank tries to emulate those urban Noel Clarke heavy films and again we have an underclass in tower blocks trying to make ends meet in an urban wasteland. At least Shank is set in the near future in a Britain suffering from economic collapse and food is scarce.
The film follows Junior and his older brother Rager who is the head of the local gang, 'The Paper Chaserz' who have a moral code of refusing to kill and getting involved in violence. However a plan to steal goods from a van goes wrong as a rival gang called the Soldiers take over the attempted theft and as they chase Junior they end up killing Rager. Junior and his crew are now looking for revenge.
The actions starts in a frenetic and heavily choppy edited fashion with Junior doing Parkour moves as he tries to get away from the Soldiers. However as suspected the film runs out of juice, the writer and director seems to think that all the youth of today want to hear is that every other word to have f@@K in it not helped by some too loud rap soundtrack especially near the end when all I wanted to see is the climax of the film and how they will deal with the thrust of their anti violence message if at all possible without being cack handed. Unfortunately cack handed it is as its a circle that cannot be squared. The actors do well especially Kedar Williams-Sterling but they are not helped by the screenplay.
The film follows Junior and his older brother Rager who is the head of the local gang, 'The Paper Chaserz' who have a moral code of refusing to kill and getting involved in violence. However a plan to steal goods from a van goes wrong as a rival gang called the Soldiers take over the attempted theft and as they chase Junior they end up killing Rager. Junior and his crew are now looking for revenge.
The actions starts in a frenetic and heavily choppy edited fashion with Junior doing Parkour moves as he tries to get away from the Soldiers. However as suspected the film runs out of juice, the writer and director seems to think that all the youth of today want to hear is that every other word to have f@@K in it not helped by some too loud rap soundtrack especially near the end when all I wanted to see is the climax of the film and how they will deal with the thrust of their anti violence message if at all possible without being cack handed. Unfortunately cack handed it is as its a circle that cannot be squared. The actors do well especially Kedar Williams-Sterling but they are not helped by the screenplay.