Ok, since most of you people on the wrong side of the Atlantic are too lazy to pick up European movies, I'm going to make a short review of the movie of the year, This Is England, so you can understand why you Must see this.

 

 

The movie takes place in the early 80s. Shaun is 12, he just lost his father in the Falklands, so he lives alone with his mother in poverty. If that wasn't enough, he is also bullied in school.

 

Then comes the change, he starts hanging out with a gang of skinheads, who becomes his new family. These blokes are not the kind of skins you think about today, they are not more racist than the average John down at the local pub. The original skinhead culture, bound together by being working class, often unemployed, and the music, ska. It's a violent culture, but not any worse than the football hooligans who infested England at this time.

 

So far there is a sense of positivity in the movie, despite the misery Shaun and his fellow skins at least have eachother, the feeling of belonging in a society that clearly doesn't give a sh*t about them. This will change however.

 

A new guy enters their group, Combo. He is just released from prison, where he has come in contact with National Front. Where the other skins raged against Thatcher, Combo comes with the idea that everything is the immigrants fault, especially those sodding Pakistanis. His appearance splits the old gang in two camps, those who wants to go on as before, they may not love pakistanis, but don't see them as the cause of all evil either. And some who are ripe for being absorbed by Combos ideas.

 

Shaun does not really understand all this, he just wants to belong, and maybe especially to have a father figure in his life. Combos authorative style gives him this, so he hooks up with that gang. Without being racist to begin with he now gets soaked up in National Fronts aggressive campaign to form a youth movement all across England.

 

 

It is an incredibly powerful movie, and it is based on the director Shane Meadows own life, completely without safetynet. It's a brilliant portrait of what England looked like for the common people during Thatchers regime, and gives a great insight in how national Front could be so very successful in recruiting young people.

 

And Thomas Turgoose (Shaun)...OMG what a performance from such a young kid!

 

Movie of the year? You kidding, This  Is England leaves all other movies so far behind that it is almost scary. 9.5 out of 10.

Fantastic film. I was seriously enraptured. And the ending, phwa!

 

9/10

 

That is all i can say about it, amazing.