TAKE A CHANCE: The Crew (2009)

Take a chance is what I say.  I’m not one to live dangerously out there in the world full of people and tangible consequence…but….at the video store I am the movie watcher’s equivalent to Evil Knievel!  Oh yes my friends and foes I walk through the isles on the prowl and go where no one else dares to tread…the single DVD release you’ve never even heard of.  And although the back cover blurb is poorly written and almost always dissuades my better judgement I say nay, nay to playing it safe…I rent the lone release and TAKE A CHANCE!

Which brings me to what will be our weekly TAKE A CHANCE REVIEW.  This week’s gem is a British crime flick called The Crew.  To my pleasant surprise (and to the surprise of my pleasant company while watching) this film turned out to be nothing short of fantastic.  The storyline, acting, and directing were really strong in this film.  I think we’ve all become accustomed to a cheeky version of the crime film so wonderfully portrayed by Guy Ritchie that we take for granted the gritty reality of crime in the UK.  This film by Adrian Vitoria is funny at times in an uncomfortable sort of way because it’s not meant to be and the rest of it makes you uncomfortable and intrigued for very different reasons all of which you will simply have to see for yourselves. 

What I will say with out hesitation is that the pace of the film is perfect.  The violence is portrayed in a way that is human if that makes any sense to anybody.  We often have the image of bad men doing bad things with little if any remorse.  This film shows a wide array of supposed "bad men" and shows that not all react to their lives of crime in similar fashions nor do they deal with the stress of said lives in exactly the same ways.  What you find by the end of this film is that there’s as many versions of the criminal as there are of the regular Joe which brings us to a very strange and unwilling conclusion: there is no difference between the criminal and the regular Joe.  We all do what we feel we can and must…when I say we I mean they as my Evil Knievel is limited to the isles of video rental facilities. 

Stephen Graham you will remember as Tommy The Gun from Snatch and you should note that his rendition of Franner in this film is the complete antithesis to Tommy in Snatch.  Scot Williams plays Ged in this (the crew boss) and his performance is very strong and seducing at times not that I mind saying so.  Also, one guy I saw in this and kept thinking "I know you" not in a "I think you went to my high school" sort of way but more in a "I think I’ve seen you in another film" sort of way…and that guy was….Kenny Doughty .  Who is Kenny Doughty?  In this he plays Ratter the ambitious psychotic criminal but back in the day he played Andy MacDowell’s love interest in Crush.  Another versatile actor in this lot.  So if sexy boys, violence, drugs, guns, and a good old crime story don’t suit you I really can’t help you.  My advice: take a chance, you just might like it.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Action, Crime, Drama, Take A Chance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.