100 Streets review: Idris Elba and Gemma Arterton lead the cast of this character-driven effort, set within one square mile in the city of London.
100 Streets review, Paul Heath, November 2016.
Director Jim O’Hanlon‘s 100 Streets is set within the confines of the one hundred streets of the title within one square mile in the city of London. Screenwriter Leon Butler‘s story, developed from a previous short, focuses its attention on three very separate stories which slightly overlap.
Front and centre we have the presence of retired rugby international Max (Idris Elba), a drug-snorting womaniser who we learn has just separated from his wife Emily (Gemma Arterton), a former actress and now apparent WAG who spends her days shopping and caring for their two children. There’s also a London black-cab driver George (Charlie Creed-Miles) and his wife Kathy (Kierston Wareing), who are desperate for their own children who we see are going down the road of adoption – and then finally a drug dealer Kingsley (Franz Drameh) who decides to change his path in life by befriending Ken Stott‘s retired actor, Terrence.
While the connections between the three stories are fleeting, they are convincing and far from contrived. The writing is perfectly accurate and the characters well-developed, the strongest being young Franz Drameh as the young offender attempting to break free of what looks to be a certain life on crime. His scenes with the always delicious Ken Stott are light-hearted and funny, though equally warming and easily the best part of the film. Charlie Creed-Miles and Kierston Wareing are also solid as Elba, while as excellent as ever, is slightly underused in the very caricatured role of Max, a stereotyped professional sportsman, teetering on the edge as his relationship with his wife breaks down over the course of the movie. Max is the catalyst in the film’s very over-the-top climax, a sequence which over-shadows a lot of what has come before, much of which is a defined, very well developed character drama that manages to steer clear of a soapy, televisual feel – which, with this subject matter, is no easy task.
Dealing with themes of alcoholism, drug addiction, loss, infidelity and even manslaughter, there’s a lot packed in to the films relatively trim 90-ish minutes, most of it well acted, directed and written – a surprisingly good, though very much understated, under-the-radar effort that is worth seeking out.
100 Streets review by Paul Heath, November 2016.
100 Streets plays in UK cinemas from Friday 4th November 2016.
