Kodie Bird
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
Jenna Walter
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Kinley
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Michael Ledo
The film mostly centers around Bobby (Gordon Alexander) who just got out of prison and has habits. He works as a stock boy at a grocery store. His mum (Joan Hodges)is sick and confined to a wheel chair. He owes Dave (Jamie Foreman, the ugly guy on the cover) money that he can't pay back. Bobby has a good friend Vince (Freddie Connor) who manages a trance/techno dance club called "The Grind." Vince works for aforesaid Dave, who cooks the books. Dave plans on opening a casino and can't have anything go awry while the application is in process.The main plot action consists of Dave leaning on people for money. Bobby's life spirals out of control as he tries to get cash to pay Dave back. While the film centers around Bobby, Vince is the closest thing we have to a likeable character in this crime thriller. I thought the production was well directed, written, and acted. It held my interest, but it lacked the dry humor that we have come to expect in British film. Jamie Foreman gives us an excellent performance. At 107 minutes the dance scenes could have been shortened.F-bombs, brief sex, nudity (Zoe Tapper)
willreemer
Perhaps not quite Lock Stock but still an awesome British Gangster movie!! I was very surprised to see the low rating here certainly compared to some other British movies released lately, as this one is thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely up there with the likes of Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1 etc.. Instant classic!!!
Steve Archer
OK first up. This film is clearly REALLY LOW BUDGET and I see from the credits of the director it's his first film and was made from a previous short film he made some years before. So going from a short to a feature is clearly a MASSIVE step up and over all I felt he did a pretty good job all being considered. Clearly having a bigger budget would have helped this film as they could have added more action, bigger named actors and better locations/extras, sound track and stunts etc. The DP has done a great job on this as it really helped the film feel edgy, dirty and the low budget feel really helped make it feel like a nasty bleak world! We are all going to Hoxton/Dalston darling!" this film ain't! :-) I personally thought the casting of Jamie Foreman was a master stroke as His dad used to be a real Hackney gangster and was in fact a hit man for the Krays for some years and KILLED A FAIR FEW PEOPLE FOR THEM. Foreman therefore lent the film a greater feel of realism than going for just another east end bad guy boss like other crime films have done. It was also a interesting part for Danny John Jules and bar his deleted extras scene in "Lock Stock" I haven't really seen him play that kind of role before or anything of that kind of low budget nature so I guess he and Foreman must have really seen something different in the realness of the script like for example Bobbie owing Foreman only £10k rather than say £250k which is more of a movie sum of money to kill someone over. In fact the fact he beat him to death himself for such a small sum of money was really shocking for me but again set up this kind of harsh and bleak, true London world. The movie does have it's flaws though it has to be said! There are far too many roles in the film (the cast seems pretty massive), there are clearly not enough extras in the night club which either means it was a real dive of a club or the film just didn't have enough money to really fill out the club scenes properly as they must have all cost money. A bit of both I would have thought. The trance music score wasn't really to my tast either but then I'm no trance fan so that's hard to judge the movie down for that one. Also the club scenes should have been edited a bit more as they did go on a bit. All in all I felt the director did a very good job on his first movie with room for improvement moving forward for future films. The Grind was a very gritty, real and hard depiction of a quickly changing part of the east end. This movie deserves it's place in the collection of gritty realistic low budget crime films. A pretty good job!
BigBlaster123
I was looking forward to watching The Grind. Having been a fan of Jamie Foreman for years, and his fantastic turn in EastEnders over the last 6 months, this film looked interesting.And was it any good? It was pretty good for a low budget film, to be fair. The story of a couple of mates, with one owing money to the other's boss is a familiar line. Martin Scorsese did this with Mean Streets nearly 30 years ago. But it works here in the Hackney setting. Performances range from very good to poor. Stand outs are Foreman and Danny John-Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf) Production values are good - visually it holds well, having gone for the gritty street realism of Nil By Mouth and Fish Tank. You can see the angle the Director had gone for in presenting a urban, street level feel.The problems are fairly easy to point at. The female characters are underused. The Vince character isn't great, it would have been better to have focused solely on the main character Bobby. And some of the dance scenes go on a bit, so if you like trance, that's great, but otherwise...Having said that, the pluses are there. The director has a strong visual sense, the locations are reminders of what many Londoners live through outside of the glare of the media. Jamie Foreman is at his most serious best, in fact his best performance in years. The story and dialogue is good. So it's a bit hit and miss, but worth a watch, even just to see Danny John-Jules and Jamie Foreman in strong performances, and the evocative settings and visuals. And it's a whole lot better than some of the British dross out there.
