LastingAware
The greatest movie ever!
YouHeart
I gave it a 7.5 out of 10
Steineded
How sad is this?
Jenni Devyn
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Adam Peters
(58%) To make yet another low budgeted cockney based crime drama is a bit like making yet another low budget zombie horror, it's something that has been done and done and done. So to stand out from the pack it really needs to be a sizeable step up from the more average entries. And I'm glad to report that this is. The first time feature film director Dexter Fletcher really has created something that shows the near impossible situation ex-cons face, and not in the more lazily way of gang intimidation to get back into a life of crime, but home and family life too. It also helps that the writing feels like something that was actually worked on rather than scribbled down on a bit of paper during shooting. While the performances are all pretty good, even if a couple of the side characters are a little underwritten. Overall a really quite solid crime drama with more than a few nice touches of comedy, a cool soundtrack, and more than a bit of heart, all set in the backdrop of a harsh London neighbourhood that's constantly changing.
Brett Castell Morley
At the beginning the movie slowly sneaks up on you and grabs your nerves and emotions by the throat and doesn't let them go until the credits roll. Actor Charlie Creed-Miles does a terrific job at portraying a somewhat born again ex convict. I was surprised to see actor Will Poulter taking on a role that differs from others, such as in We're the Millers. Will does an excellent job. The only small disappointment is the fight scene at the end. I would have like to have seen just a bit more. This film however still went straight to my favourite British and All Time favourite films list. I can only recommend it.
Prismark10
Actor Dexter Fletcher turns to directing and armed with a small budget he seems he has turned to some friends such as Sean Pertwee, Andy Serkis and Olivia Williams to make cameos who appear for a scene or two in the film.The main performances are from Charlie Creed-Miles who is Wild Bill, and his two sons played by Will Poulter and Sammy Williams. Creed-Miles plays a man released from a eight years stretch under licence and finds out that his two young children living alone for the last nine months as their mother has hopped it to Spain.In order for them not to be taken into care he has to be a father to them and gain there respect as he had had no presence in their lives due to his stint in jail.Poulter who is better known though the Narnia films and We're the Millers gives the best performance as a 15 year old who has to work in a building site and fend for his younger sibling. He is matched by Creed- Miles who has to take responsibility maybe for the first time in his life whilst try to keep in the straight and narrow by avoiding the low life who want him to go back to drug dealing and deal with the trouble his youngest son has got himself into.The film is set in Stratford in the shadow of the London Olympic Stadium, its setting is a year before the 2012 Olympics. It does have a very cliché looking urban tower block London setting. It kinds of reminds you of all those Death Wish type films of the 1970s set in New York where you have muggers, drug dealers and rapists in every corner, far outnumbering just ordinary people getting on with their lives. What is worse you have some white people speaking black patois which is very irritating.It is low budget movie making, the film has heart, a very good staged fight scene set in a pub and apart from a paper plane flying scene very little cinematic flair, it could be something British directors such as Alan Clarke could had knocked out rather easily 30 years ago for Play for Today.
Andrei Lukyanov
On the one hand, I loved the story. Irresponsible father reconnecting with his family and cleaning up the children's mess. But on the other hand he got busted in the end by law enforcers. Hey, are those law enforcers really so lawless? The law, I would like to hope, tries to be more humane and those who enforce it are put there to compensate its flaws. That what is usually praised in the films. As in 'Derailed', 'The Departed', let alone other innumerable examples. In those films police, when stumbles upon a conflict between the written law and justice, looks into the situation and makes a just choice. In 'Wild Bill' law enforcement is shown as some inhuman, mechanical force, careless of justice. And it cannot be even communicated with. They are just there and act as if they are robots. They represent some higher, inanimate power, or is it just safe for me to think of them as of something inanimate, because if I had believed that they are real alive people, it would destroy my worldview? I think that is why no one of police officers is ever shown in the film. Because no one would ever believe that human beings can act like this. All this reminds me of Dostoevski books, in which the author always puts characters in some totally unrealistic situations that make them to make hard decisions, to choose the less of two evils. Situations like the one Bill was put in. Such stories are very sob-inducing, hence are considered to be powerful stuff by readers and viewers. So that what 'Wild Bill' essentially is. A sob-inducing machine. I do not like that. I feel manipulated and stripped of my time. Although, I liked the acting.