ross-boyask Review of Rollin' with the Nines

Rollin' with the Nines (2006)

The British Film Industry Just Got A Well-Deserved Kick In The Teeth!

[8/10 · 10 November 2005]

I saw this at a preview screening at Riverside Studios last night and I have to say i was blown away by the film. The story itself starts off fairly simple but becomes more sophisticated throughout, resulting in an action-packed drama full of blood-soaked death and intrigue. The characters are all fairly amoral (which suits me fine) and the best of the bunch are the cops played by Terry Turbo, Dominic Alan-Smith, George Calil and Will Gilbey (who gets an excellent on-foot chase sequence), who are straight out of gritty cop shows such as The Professionals, The Sweeney and The Shield. The action sequences are uniformly excellent, including a head-pounding police assault on a drugs den and the aforementioned chase. There are stand-out performances from the ever-reliable Billy Murray as a notorious crime lord, Adam Saint as his rather terrifyingly hard bodyguard, and Naomi Taylor as the lead female character Hope. There is a great deal of violence and swearing which will not be to everyone's taste but I never felt that it was too gratuitous, in fact the bad language is depressingly realistic. There is a lot of dark humour on display here. Vas Blackwood and Robbie Gee get a chance to stretch their acting range in their roles and do so with flying colours. The only poor performance on show was from an actor that used to be in the boy band Blue (i think). He gave it a good try but left no real impression on me. Jason Flemyng puts in a good cameo as the cops' pragmatic Captain (worryingly called Captain Flemyng) and he has an excellent scene with Terry Turbo. There is a morally ambiguous ending which suited the tone of the film to a tee but may not sit well with those desperate for happy endings or stupidly obvious Hollywood-style resolutions. I'm not really into the Hip-Hop side of things myself so the opening 10 minutes or so which focused on the band about to release their single left me cold but then a rather shocking set of events kicks the film off and it never slows down from there. I may be gushing a bit but it's rare that a British film actually presses so many of my buttons. For people interested in the technical aspects of the film i thought it was extremely well shot, lit and edited, and the sound design was stunning. Thats my tuppence for what it's worth.