This ‘Wild Bill’ dates from 2011 and was directed by Dexter Fletcher of ‘Press Gang’ fame. It is a bit grim and urban but there is a lot to like, not least a smattering of familiar faces on various stages of their career trajectories.
We meet the titular Bill as he’s being released from Prison after an 8 years stretch for drugs, G.B.H. - you name it. We follow his long trip home from his cell on the Isle of Wight to his horrible flat in a London sink estate. His two sons Dean 15, and Jimmy 11, have been coping on their own for the nine months since Mum ran off with a fancy man to Spain. They are not best pleased to let Dad back in the flat and only acquiesce when forced to do so by the local villains. There ruffians expect Bill to come back to his drug dealing patch, and to seal the deal they get him plastered and a date with the fetching Roxie.
Dean is providing for the family and working as a labourer off the books. Jimmy, who has a bit of the stage school about him, is going off the rails; dogging school and smashing windows. Bill soon sees what he’s missed and resolves to be a good Dad. In no time flat he’s cooking dinner and cleaning the bog.
Dean’s fledgling romance with hairdresser Steff is stalled by the theft of some money and Jimmy tries to help the family by being a lookout for the drugs gang. Sadly when the cops come calling he trashes the gear and is now in debt to the drug barons.
Bill meanwhile gets a £3 an hour job holding up a sign and soon has the cash to buy his son a hooker for his birthday (it’s Roxy again!) and plates up a mean shepherd’s pie. The kids start to recognise his effort but Jimmy‘s drug debt will see them all have some troubled times before they can start playing happy families. Or gin rummy for that matter. Will this be a story of redemption or was Bill damned before he got off the ferry?
Despite myself I enjoyed this latest instalment of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bad Slags'. The characters are uniformly horrible but you can’t hep to warm to them as they try to make the best of their terrible existences. Charlie Creed-Mills is great as the hapless Bill. He’s painted as a legendary nutter from the start and it’s fun seeing him follow a worthwhile path, as we know it's going to end with him kicking off. I recognised him from ‘Harry Brown’ and I’m pretty sure the same pub was in that too - maybe they come as a package?
Of the sons the older one Dean played by Will Poulter was better and you’ll know him from the recent interactive ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Bandersnatch. He was in the Narnia films too, but I’ve only seen the first one and don’t remember him. He spends a lot of the film scowling but does look made up when the hairdresser takes her top off.
For your money you also get two scenes of Andy Serkiss as a pointless drug lord and Liz White off ‘Life on Mars’ as the ‘hooker with a heart’, Roxy. In addition Ramsay Bolton comes on and does his mad eye shtick - keep working on that your time will come! Needless to say Sean Petwee also shows up as is the legal requirement of any film make in the UK. This time he helps out by only showing up in one scene and he reuses his copper’s costume from ‘Alpha Papa’. Oh, and as a bonus you also get Miss Cross off ‘Rushmore’ as Bill’s ineffectual parole officer.
The direction and pace of the film were well handled and I like the long montage of how drugs were packaged and distributed in the estate. It was a bit like ‘Breaking Bad’. Wait a minute, it was exactly like ‘Breaking Bad’!
The film builds towards an inevitable climax and, to be honest, it was the only part that I felt short-changed by. Our man was summoned to the pub for a showdown with a mental drugs gang, What followed was a bit limp and I don’t think the build up got the pay off it deserved. That said, it was well enough made and I had enough invested in the characters for me to enjoy the overall package.
All the main characters enjoyed something of an arc and, although nothing was resolved, we still have hope for the future. Can’t ask for much more than that!
W Rating 18/23 Best Bit : You don’t get that at my hairdresser’s!
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