1 Day (2009) Reviews

• Glamourising our country's shame.

  Real-Horror-Show2009-11-05

  Storyline: One young drug dealer tells his best friend 'You owe me a hundred bags of scrilla(?), I want it in two hours or I'll lick your head off, you get me blud?' Technically, a decent film. In every other aspect, garish, non-sensical, badly written, underdeveloped and frankly, embarrassing. A film glamorising what, personally, I feel to be the Achilles heel of Britian, inner city gang culture. Absolutely no message here, no redeeming aspects of any of the thugs depicted (and all are thugs), who are constantly unlikable. I'd like to hear an argument that the filmmaker condemns the behaviour depicted here. I felt that the hip-hop musical numbers scattered about the story actually contributed to the mood of the film, whether this is a good thing, I'm not sure. At one point, as mentioned by another reviewer, the gang perform a rap at a bunch of civilians sitting in a fast food restaurant, the gist of it being 'You clutch your handbags because you assume we'll rob you due to us being black'... Now, I feel I must mention that this gang have pistols in their belts whilst they rap this, not to mention a bag of drug money on one of their backs. One type of person will go to see this at the cinema. The type depicted in this disgraceful film... and those cinemas should expect trouble, especially only rated at 15. I apologise that this isn't an in-depth review, I simply refuse to give it any more time.

• So close... but not quite cigar!

  Sjhm2009-11-06

  As musicals go, this hip hop effort from Penny Woolcock pulls no punches, but doesn't quite emotionally connect. A cocky young guy owes money to someone higher up the chain, the story follows him through the mean streets as he desperately tries to get the money to pay this guy back. Along the way he connects with a child who wants to get onto the first rung of the ladder, the three mothers of his various children, his own mother and grandmother in a snapshot of the two sides of life at the bottom of the heap. One of the main problems is that unless you are really "in" the hip hop world, a great deal of the dialogue is incomprehensible. The action is easy to follow, but the subtleties are lost on most people over the age of thirty, which down-grades the moments of poignancy considerably. And Flash is such an unlikeable character! At one point he even steals back the jewellery he gave to his girlfriends. Another problem is that the intentions of the big set pieces in the film are so telegraphed that you can predict with pin-point accuracy what is going to happen before it does. The moment that the little side-kick drops the gun on the sofa, you know how the confrontation in the multi-storey is going to pan out. I really wanted to like this. It really is okay to have a main character who is unlikeable, but you need something sympathetic to draw on and there really wasn't anything to hook into. Even as a bold statement the film doesn't quite catch it, because there's too much predictability in the outcome. I came away feeling mostly dissatisfied. Disappointing.

• Yo, homies!!!!!

  anxietyresister2011-01-07

  Yay, just what the world was waiting for.. the first grime musical!! Yes, you heard it right.. the actors regularly break into profanity laden raps (complete with backing track) about how much they hate others and the variety of ways they're going to kill their enemies, and I have it say it works quite well. Apparently the cast wrote their own lyrics too, which makes it doubly impressive. Less certain however, is the acting, which ranges from reasonable to just plain diabolical. I supposed that's what you get when you hire non-professional stars for 'authenticity'. Also, the movie is just one big chase sequence after the first quarter of an hour, with bizarre comedic asides involving Flash's three bitchy baby mothers and his senile but domineering granny. It's completely unbelievable in every aspect, but somehow fun.. to a point. After the umpteenth foul-mouthed musical interlude, and yet another scene of Flash running from his pursuers, things get a little tiresome. They try to show some social realism as well, like a homeless young boy who has to steal for a living because his mum spends all her time at the local crack house, but this just comes over as window dressing. I have a feeling that it will be fully appreciated by those who share the same music tastes as the participants, or supporters of yoof cinema who think the current crop are just too sanitised. Otherwise, it's just like an extended, after-the-watershed episode of Eastenders, with a dash of Dizzee Rascal (before his pop career started) thrown in for good measure. Does that sound like fun? If so, take a look. 5/10

• Over-bearing urban thriller behind some iffy controversy

  davideo-22010-05-06

  STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Flash (Dylan Duffus) receives a phone call from Angel (Yohance Watson), who's just been released from prison, telling him to re-pay quite a large loan in the next twenty four hours...or there'll be repercussions. So begins a desperate race against time to secure the money and all the while, try to dodge other problems in his life. I'm glad 1 Day found it's way onto DVD, being as in the city it is filmed, where I live, Birmingham City Council found it in their wisdom to issue a ban on it in cinemas, for the terrifying fear that hordes of black youths may swarm to see it and get converted into gang members. Such petty, pompous over-reaction is what you can expect from the clueless people in power but eventually everything finds it's way into sight. Needless to say, being filmed around my stomping ground, it was fun to spot and pick out landmark locations and see it put on the map cinematically. But that's the most fun I did manage out of it. At heart a tough, grimy urban thriller, the film also seems to have aspirations of being a musical. People walked out in droves over Sweeney Todd's musical numbers, but I found it more of a problem here. I know this is very much my personal opinion, but I felt the musical interludes ruined it and robbed it of some of it's dynamism, however authentic the harsh, gravelly lyrics and delivery were. It's your typical back-of-the-bus music and made a film already uncomfortably shoving the nastier aspects of black culture in your face harder to stomach. It's got everything right in terms of dialogue and delivery too, with the street slang and patois used by the main characters sounding very real too, but it doesn't make them any more likable or the experience any more enjoyable for anyone from the outside looking in. The singing aside, 1 Day manages a very real and well realized harsh dose of real life...but if these are the kind of people you don't want to see in real life, it's just one you won't want to watch again. **

• underrated for sure.

  unknown85852010-01-06

  The acting was superb, I found the adult actors and actresses very believable in their roles. The quality of the production was excellent, in fact it was better than most urban/gangland films that I've seen here in America with relatively unknown actors/actresses. The Hip-Hop/Grime musical sprinkled throughout the movie was very much welcomed after the first performance, as I've stated before the actors/actresses are really talented. Many people will be looking for a message within the film and probably won't find one. This was a window into the life of a young man who was in over his head and the type of characters and drama he was surrounded by. Believe it or not, not all thugs/gangsters reflect on their way of life and view it as downtrodden, It is was it is to some of them. As an American the slang used is different but based on the context of any dialogue it wasn't difficult to interpret.