City Rats

This little-seen, poorly regarded, conspicuously grungy British Indie melodrama features top Lahnden sleazers, the priapic, potty-mouthed Diamond Slags of 'The Business', and this time out, Danny Dyer & Tamer Hassan credibly play against type, delivering career best performances in, Steve Kelly's witheringly bleak, downward-spiraling, multi character, inner-city existential nightmare, 'City Rats' (2009). A suitably sordid, superbly acted ensemble piece that greatly deserves far more of a nod than it currently receives. So, if you should ever care to take a butchers at some of the more debased creatures lurking within London's seamy underbelly, 'City Rats' provides a rather stark, if not exactly edifying overview of their tawdry travails!

Outside of its relative obscurity, 'City Rats' adds a singular 'oddness' to the all-too familiar milieu of London's oft-romanticized criminal underclasses that, for me, makes, Steve Kelly's downbeat drama a wholly unique experience! And it would be entirely remiss of me if I didn't mention the gutsy performance given by the fabulous, Susan Lynch as the disabled prostitute, 'Gina'. As someone who has spent much of his adult life in a dark place, some of the themes explored in 'City Rats' rang uncomfortably true, and it's a shame that the swarthily handsome Hassan's robust performance as a morose dipso has been ignored, and if no one else, Bukowski woulda dug on this one!

This film promises much more than it delivers. I am not necessarily a fan boy of films such as Football Factory, or The Business, which portray Danny Dyer et. al. as cheeky cockney chappies who aren't nice guys but we empathise with and indeed, I applaud Messrs Dyer, and Hassan for taking a film with roles which are far more challenging and require far more acting talent than previously seen from them. They are thoroughly fantastic throughout and earned a star each in this review for their outstanding performances of what is an awful concept, and, quite frankly, script.

I do not want to include any spoilers, but it appears that this film, as mentioned by way2grimee is mere arty farty rubbish. It is a film for films sake and as such neglects the audience throughout. It appears the concept of the film drove the dialogue, and this results in a choppy narrative that has been described as 'like pulp fiction', but actually just seemed more like pulp...soggy, and with little substance. It fails to deliver any satisfying character development, leaving a total lack of empathy or understanding for the characters. I also agree with way2grimee that the sexual scenes, both homo and hetero, appear to be there for no other reason than gratuity and controversy and indeed, using cinematic suggestion the same effect on the storyline, and what scant character development there was, could have been achieved, possibly in a much better, more subtle and less brick-through-a-window fashion.

As mentioned, I am not a particular fan boy of the British gangster genre, and this therefore in no way swayed my opinion. I do like to support the British film industry, but, unfortunately it seems to be aiming to be more and more pretentious with each film. Everyone in the UK business seems to be so generically British in wanting to show the worst in everything...This film reeked of "Ooh look at how seedy London is"-ness, by someone whose experience of the seediness of London is accidentally talking to a homeless man on his way home from an organic fruit and vegetable stall at Borough Market.

Simon Fantauzzo, the writer, strikes me as someone who has spent far too much time studying film and writing itself, and not enough time on cinematography, and trying to engage the audience; as such this movie falls so flat on its face that I feel its release could easily feature on You've Been Framed. Controversial? yes, edgy? perhaps; but engaging? No way.

This was the worst, most pretentious load of absolute inane rubbish I have ever had the misfortune to watch.

Luckily, however I managed to get my £3's worth (that's what it cost in Tescos) by watching 'the making of City Rats' in the extras part of the DVD. This was hysterical. The horrible, misogynistic and clearly sexually perverted director is on the biggest ego trip of his life and has managed to drag everyone else on this production along with it like some pied piper of doom.

There are some great lines like 'I did some research - I'll miss playing Chris' (James Lance, the bloke with the bit part in Alan Partridge, on his thoroughly embarrassing portrayal of an autistic homosexual - Hoffman you are most certainly not).

'I read a lot of sh*t scripts - but they are made into a success by big Hollywood actors' - Hussan. True... but this script is the most sh*t one ever and it's only got you in it so that's even worse.

Danny Dyer said some really funny things too (in that sort of I'm trying to be a serious method actor kind of a way) and the guy out of that dull mid 90's Asian family on Eastenders definitely got the top w*nker award but I've forgotten what both of them said right now and I can't face watching it again so you'll have to check it out for yourself..

My favourite quote however is from the 1st AD (I think it was) who said... 'This is the part of the DVD you watch when you've watched the film so many times and you think there must be something else on here to watch.' I suggest he reads the first review of this film I ever read which says... 'I would rather f*st my own dead grandmother than watch this film again.'

What started as a thoroughly depressing waste of an hour and a half of my life turned into a hysterically funny evening (albeit helped by a half a bottle of Jack Daniels). Buy this DVD (but try and get it for less than the £3 I paid) and have a laugh at the expense of everyone's inflated and misplaced egotistical ramblings on the 'making of'. It just shows you what happens when a bunch of failed trustafarian film students in Notting Hill actually achieve what they have been threatening to do for the last 10 years once armed with daddy's cheque book.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

London is a city full of people, moving about in droves, with little time for each other, facing straight ahead and barely noticing each other exists. From the top looking down below, people might well appear like 'rats', scurrying about to whatever garbage bin has attracted their attention. No one appears to have the time to look in the more solitary corners and see the sorry state of affairs going on there. In short, it's a terrible place to be lonely and stared down at. Yet the main characters presented in City Rats, each one linked to each other in some way which we find out about as the story goes on, prompt the sort of contempt which makes us inflict this grim fate on them but as events roll on, we are forced to see them in a different light and see less judgemental reasoning for how things turned out like they did for them. Starting with the ex drug dealer trying to buckle down to an honest living who is approached by the mother of a guy he used to know to help track him down, we move on to a wife beater separated from his family who whiles away his time dropping water melons from tall buildings and sharing phone sex with a crippled prostitute who finds herself the interest of a poet who lives on the floor below her. Meanwhile, a man takes his deaf, autistic brother on a tour around seedy Soho to help him lose his virginity and come to terms with his homosexuality.

Maybe we don't have the best actors to play them, but this is still a very impressive character study, that has a clever use of atmosphere, mood and soundtrack to engross us in what's going on. The whole 'water melons dropping from a building' thing is a bit weird and not explained properly but Tamer Hassan's character develops the most, with his relationship with a similarly suicidal young woman which has a devastating, abrupt conclusion. A small film with some flaws, but enough going on beneath the surface to make it shine. ****

It was ok .It had interesting interaction between the characters .The main actors included Tamer Husan and Danny Dyer so you know what kind of film it will be.