“You know what you are? You’re a bully, man.”

Plot Summary: Set in Britain in the ’80s this coming-of-age story focuses on a young boy who falls in with a group of skinheads.  

Review:

On his way home from school one day a lonely, bullied 11-year old named Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), who’s recently lost his father in the Falklands War, encounters a gang of skinheads. The leader, Woody, takes an immediate liking to the kid, but because Woody is a skinhead you suspect there must be an ulterior motive behind his gesture of friendship: is he befriending the kid in order to get him to do something illegal for the gang, perhaps? Surprisingly, no - it turns out Woody is a genuinely good guy, as is most of his gang of skinheads, and for a while Shaun finds a joyous sense of belonging in this surrogate family. But this all changes when Combo (Stephen Graham), a neo-Nazi and National Front sympathizer, rejoins the gang after a stint in the can. His seething anger and racial hatred, directed mostly at immigrant Pakistanis for stealing jobs away from “real Britons”, divide the gang, prompting many to leave in disgust, including Woody, but Shaun stays because Combo’s position on the Falklands War, that it resulted in a pointless loss of life, resonates deeply with him. Given a choice between these two father figures, Woody or Combo, Shaun unfortunately chooses Combo because his revolt against “authority” seems to promise some measure of retribution for the death of his father. 

Although there’s nothing particularly enlightening or profound about the film’s fairly straightforward message - that Thatcherism created a lot of problems, such as the Falklands War, but that violent rebellion is not a viable answer to them - it nevertheless impresses due to its naturalistic performances, its authentic evocation of time and place, and its compassionate but by no means uncritical examination of its alienated and confused characters. Everyone has his reasons, even Combo, who despite committing an unforgivably brutal crime at the end is not without a heart, though one often smothered by the twisted ideology infecting his mind. Graham’s outstanding performance frighteningly conveys Combo’s volatile nature; even when Combo appears relatively relaxed, even friendly, he still seems to be on the verge of exploding in anger, and it’s that barely contained rage always bubbling so close to the surface that keeps those around him (and the audience) on edge.  Graham’s potent performance withstands a few scenes that don’t really work, particular those that strain too hard to humanize him, such as when he confides to a girl that the night they spent together before he went to prison was the best night of his life, only to have her say that it was the worst night of hers, which causes him to weep like a little boy. The melodramatic excess of this scene - which all-too-obviously reinforces what we already know about Combo: that he never received much love - is more than counterbalanced by many other genuinely powerful scenes that depict his misdirected animosity toward innocent victims, including young Pakistani boys playing on “his” street and a Pakistani shop owner he robs and threatens.

But this is, finally, Shaun’s coming-of-age story, one with autobiographical elements, which encompasses themes such as lost innocence, friendship, betrayal and disillusionment, and the allure fanaticism holds for impressionable young minds. If Shaun’s ultimate rejection of Combo’s worldview seems a little pat, there’s no denying the essential poignancy of his story or the power of his bittersweet final scene by the seashore, with its deliberate echoes of The 400 Blows.

Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews