Has anyone ever laughed as much as I did in an Uruguayan cinema upon hearing the words ‘Edwina Currie’? I doubt it. This reference to the erstwhile politician and lover of the former prime minister actually taps into the wider themes of Meadows’ engaging early work. The central character, Darcy, played by Bob Hoskins with an irascible glee, keeps a diary, which one of the lads who make up his boxing team later discovers. In it, he writes, and narrates, that he was one of those left behind in the Thatcherite boom of the eighties. Which is why he finds himself down on his luck, identifying with the gang of kids who hang around and get into trouble. His mission to set up the boxing club and give the kids a focus in life is a communitarian reaction to the warped individualism of Thatcherite Britain.
The film rides on the back of Hoskins’ charm, the director’s verve and the humour of the kids. Meadows’ future as a spinner of stories for TV can be noted here, as there are more than enough sub-stories and narrative strands to fill out another three movies at least. The closing credits come over the scenes of Darcy’s funeral, a few years after the film’s events, picking out the lads and their new families. The film is carried by Hoskins, whose commitment to the boxing club presumably reflected his commitment to the film itself, an actor with a notable track record mucking in with a rookie director and an even more rookie cast.
The film’s depiction of a depressed Midlands town, where multi-racial youths feel as though there is nothing to do except look for trouble, feels acute and authentic. It is also a telling prefiguration of a country which, no matter how wealthy it has appeared, has been in many ways running on empty for forty years.
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