Ill Manors Review

Ill Manors is a low budget, British film, directed by rapper and song writer, Plan B (Ben Drew). The film depicts the financial struggles of people within a low class and the consequences they face when they turn to illegal means of earning money. The film has several different storylines which are ultimately weaved together, by using Plan B's original raps to narrate different parts of the story. This is a very unique aspect of the film which not only reflects Plan B's originality as a director but as an artist as well. The rap is very relevant to the film as it sets the overall atmosphere of the film to be a gritty, urban crime and drama film.

 The characters' family background seems to be central to the film as it gives a reason for the character's to be in the situation they are in. The characters experienced several different issues as children such as abandonment and sexual abuse which is shown to have affected them to be who they are in the film; drug dealers and prostitutes. Plan B bravely presented the audience with the realities of life to film watchers who would not be particularly familiar with this sort of lifestyle and brings awareness to the consequences of this reality. The film also shows that today's youth are increasingly getting introduced to criminal activity and believe that it is "cool" to be involved with these kinds of things. This is explicitly shown in he film when Jake, a very young boy who looks around the age of 13 or 14 tries to buy weed from a gang. To gain access to the weed and respect from the gang members, Jake was willing to assault his friend who gave him the money. Also, to be acknowledged by the gang leader, Jake even went to the furthest extent by committing and extremely severe crime. This warns the audience of the measures that young people in today's society, are willing to take. The film is very appealing to the aimed target audience as the events in the film are experienced by characters around a similar age to the target audience making the characters easy to identify with.

Unfortunately, although Plan B may have primarily aimed the audience to be men due to the violent scenes and props, some women (maybe even men) may be offended by the representation of women. The main women depicted in the film are Michelle and Katya who are both sexually abused, constantly. This shows that women who live in this environment are powerless against the men (apart from the scene when Michelle hits one of the men who abuses Katya, to escape). In the film, the men all seem to have something that gives them power whether it is a gun, drugs to sell or a gang, whereas the women do not have any of these things and maybe even have things that make them weaker, for example, Katya's baby may be considered by some people as her weakness.

A point that makes the film likeable may be the fact that although all the characters either commit or experience some sort of criminal activity, the characters are not shown to be completely bad as they try to do some good deeds as the film progresses. The most surprising good deed for me, was Ed saving the baby from the house on fire. Throughout the film, Ed is portrayed to be very emotionless (apart from his anger) and does not care about anything other than money but he decides to save a life at the end, while sacrificing his own. This shows the audience that no matter what extent people go to, to survive, they still have a conscious and despite their situation, they will try to do what is right.

Overall Ill Manors is a very explicit crime drama which shows the audiences another side to life. Although my personal view of the film was that some of the events were too explicit for my liking, i enjoyed the character  developments and the engaging plot of the story. The storyline was very realistic which was one of the points as to why it was very fascinating and the important morals taught during the course of the film may be very useful for society's youth.