TwentyFourSeven . Newcity Chicago . 05-11-98

TwentyFourSeven

DIRECTED BY: Shane Meadows

REVIEWED: 05-11-98

Bob Hoskins is the tender heart of "TwentyFourSeven," the debut feature of 24-year-old English wunderkind Shane Meadows. Shot in a black-and-white of brute elegance, Meadows' movie traces the rise and fall of Alan Darcy, a man in an unnamed Midlands town who starts a boxing club to try to round up the angry young men in the surrounding housing estates. As embodied by compact Cockney Hoskins, Darcy is a fierce, even visionary force whose impact on the boys' lives resounds through a remarkably funny and heartbreaking final scene. The 55-year-old Hoskins began his own career as a lark, following a friend into an audition while drunk, and found Meadows a kindred spirit. While only 24 now, Meadows made about thirty short films with a videocorder after leaving school at age 15. "[Producer] Steve Wooley sent me one of these videos and, this is extraordinary, this is from the street, by the street, for the street! This is the real thing. I said, 'This kid ought to be encouraged.' He said, 'well, we're backing him for a full-length feature, and the thing is, he's written it for you.' I thought, 'Aw, I walked straight into that one!' Thanks, pal!" Hoskins felt an immediate kinship with the kid from project housing after reading his script, but then, as he say, "In he walked, he's sort of five-foot-six, cubic-like, box-shaped, with a shaved head, and, 'There's my boy! Yeah! Us cubes stick together! The kid's gotta be a genius!'"

--Ray Pride

Capsule Reviews
TwentyFourSeven
TwentyFourSeven

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