Bullet Boy (2004)

Director:

Saul Dibb

Writers:

Saul Dibb, Catherine Johnson

Stars:

Ashley Walters, Luke Fraser, Leon Black

3 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ashley Walters	...	Ricky
Luke Fraser	...	Curtis
Leon Black	...	Wisdom
Clare Perkins	...	Beverley (as Claire Perkins)
Sharea Samuels	...	Shea (as Sharea-mounira Samuels)
Curtis Walker	...	Leon
Rio Tison	...	Rio
Clark Lawson	...	Godfrey
Jadiel Vitalis	...	Meadow
Sylvester Williams	...	Neville
Jaime Winstone	...	Natalie (as Jamie Winstone)
Louise Delamere	...	Probation Officer
Des Hamilton	...	School Teacher
Chris Callendar	...	Ricky's Solicitor
Husseyn Clus	...	Turkish Van Driver

Storyline

---

Plot Keywords:

ghetto | gangster | sex | dawn raid | london england | 

---

Taglines:

Pray... They may be your last words...

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence, a strong sex scene, language and some drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [uk]

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 April 2005 (UK)

Also Known As:

Bullet Boy - Sem Perdão

Filming Locations:

Hackney, London, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

£140,332 (UK) (8 April 2005)

Gross:

£297,735 (UK) (15 April 2005)

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBC Films, UK Film Council, Shine

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shot largely within one square mile on the edge of Hackney.

---

Goofs

When Rio and Leon are playing hide and seek, the boom microphone is visible in the lower left corner screen for a second.

---

Soundtracks

"Drawing Board"
Performed by Terri Walker
Written by Louise Francis and James Yards

User Reviews

Murder Style

Back in 1980, Franco Rosso's Babylon, starring Aswad's Brinsley Forde, told the story of young black Britain under siege. Filmed around Deptford, Lewisham and Brixton in south London and financed by the National Film Council, it drew a fundamentally honest, unsentimental portrait, employing a rich, unsubtitled patois. Understandably, much of the film also dealt with racism - white on black - and its tragic repercussions.

Twenty-five years on, the most significant (and depressing) thing about Saul Dibb's study of black Londoners is its frank recognition that the hate and violence has since turned inward - manifested in gun crime.

In Bullet Boy, 20-year-old Ricky (Walters, aka So Solid Crew's Asher D) is paroled from youth custody and attempts to rekindle a relationship with his girlfriend Shea (Samuels). Hooking up with his hot-headed friend - the ironically named Wisdom (Black) - he almost immediately runs into trouble with rival Godfrey (Lawson) in a road rage incident. As the tit-for-tat feud escalates, Ricky's impressionable 12-year-old brother Curtis (Fraser) discovers a gun which Wisdom has given Ricky for his protection - and the murderous cycle of violence continues.

This is a film of firsts. Arriving some 15 years after a brace of similarly-themed American films, such as John Singleton's Boyz N The Hood, this is the first film to spotlight gun violence in Britain's black community, and makes an interesting comparison. It's documentary maker Dibb's first feature too, having previously made 'Electric Avenue' and 'The Tottenham Ayatollah' for Channel 4 television. And it's Asher's (okay, Walters') movie debut.

It's a cute - and astute - stroke of casting: he'd read the script while in prison for gun possession. And the cast is one of the things Bullet Boy has got right, featuring gutsy and unsentimental performances, particularly from the all too convincing lead, but also from stand-up comedian Curtis Walker as a former bad-boy-turned-pastor and Perkins as a pragmatic matriarch.

The use of non-professional actors also imbues proceedings with documentary-style naturalism, matched by the film's east London locations, photographed by Marcel Zyskind in pitiless natural light, and employed very effectively during a recurring motif of a dead dog floating on a river like the ghost at the feast.

Though Dibb cannot hope to encompass the whole subject matter in a 90-minute film, his focus on how gun culture affects the entire family unit is an intelligent approach, making the wider issue accessible - and subsequently harder hitting.

If certain sequences appear heavy-handed - 12-year-old Curtis playing shoot-em-up videogames as a prescient prelude to tragedy; the Godfather-style juxtaposition between a church sermon and a murder - well, perhaps that's the way it ought to be.