Shifty

Yes, a good film, and for one made for a £100 grand a hell of an achievement. The performances were good to excellent (the Trevor character in particular was particularly convincing). I like the fact the film makers had not resorted to simplistic visuals to get the message across. For example the estate where they lived looked pretty nice and yet even with the sunshine you still felt this story was right there.

My only reservations are I didn't consider the banter was as convincing as everybody seems to think it was. But mainly it was the subject matter. Guns, gangsters, drugs, family conflict here we go again. Apparently, the original script focused on the dealer and his customers and that would have suited me more.

But if you get the chance to see it - well worth a look.

It is hard to believe they made this film for £100k. I wasn't expecting it to be great, but it was far better than I expected. I liked the two main characters Shifty and Chris and the whole ensemble were very good.

Riz Ahmed and Daniel Mays are both very good actors, I had seen a fine performance by Daniel Mays in Mike Leigh's 'All or Nothing' but it was the first time I had seen Riz. Although they aren't really well known outside TV and smaller budget stuff, both these actors are going to be big names in the future. I have great regard for all the actors who appear in Mike Leigh films and Daniel Mays will be up there with Tim Spall, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, Phil Davis to name a few.

It is a fairly simple story of a drug dealer who runs into big trouble, it is a good portrait of the seedy world of drugs and the horrors they bring. Although very different, I would recommend this film to anyone who liked 'Sexy Beast' 'Dead Man's Shoes'.

They did a brilliant job with £100k.

While a subject that is quite familiar to low budget UK films, 'Shifty' is better than most.

The tiny budget may have made too much flashiness impossible, the film is all the better for it. Since it gives a more realistic touch and lets the characters develop.

The film does was it sets out to do well, 24 hours in the life of a drug dealer (who unlike the usual stereotype had choices due to his good education and once supportive family). His limited world is upturned by an old friend returning to town after 4 years, after an event, not revealed until late in the film, though he has plenty of other problems looming.

Well shot, good characters, good script and it kept me interested from start to finish with some very good moments within a tight narrative.

Plenty of similar films in this genre deliver less than they promise, 'Shifty' on the other hand, to quote a well known advert in the UK 'Does What It Says On The Tin'. And does it very well. Recommended.

Shifty is being hailed in some quarters as an early contender for best British film of 2009 - a double-edged blessing for any debut, which can rarely hope to live up to the hype, however well intentioned. Shifty isn't the second coming, the one true saviour of UK independent cinema. But it's a very decent little crime thriller, with a lot of heart, that deserves more than a couple of weeks at the repertory before being marooned on DVD.

Chris (Daniel Mays) returns from Manchester to the (fictional) outer London suburb of Dudlowe after four years in white-collared exile. To his surprise, he discovers his old school mate Shifty (Riz Ahmed), the "smart kid in class, four A-levels", has since transformed from a part-time weed merchant into a full blown crack dealer.

Over the next 24 hours, the country mouse accompanies the town mouse on his rounds, supplying everyone from middle-class hippies to dead eyed kids, while being stalked by an increasingly agitated Trevor (Jay Simpson), a broken family man prepared to take his next fix by any means necessary. (Shifty must be selling some uncommonly good gear.) Meanwhile his brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra) is about to kick him out of his house, and double-crossing supplier Glen (Jason Flemyng) is setting him up for a fall. Can Chris convince Shifty to abandon his life at the crack face before he comes a cropper?

'Shifty' sounds like an ITV comedy drama from the late 1960s or early 1970s, no doubt starring Hywel Bennett or Adam Faith as its eponymous lovable rogue; up to no good, but more victim than predator - and that's pretty much the case here. An ocean away from The Wire's corner boys, Baltimore's tooled-up foot soldiers marinated in murder, Shifty's scrappy pushers embody a familiar kind of hapless Englishness; the sort who might shut up shop for a day, owing to the wrong kind of snow on the road. Yet for all its lively banter ("I can't believe you just sold crack to Miss Marple and struck a deal with Blazin' Squad") the film is no quirky apologia for crime. This is the pedestrian reality of drug abuse: people hurting themselves in small rooms.

All the cast are terrific, playing real three-dimensional characters, but actor-musician Riz Ahmed is standout as the titular live wire, utterly nailing the dealer's temporal mindset. He might look as if he's physically occupying a scene, but he's not really there at all - his eyes tell us he's already on the next page, a parasitic tick, eternally leaping from host to host.

Writer-director Eran Creevy drew his inspiration from a former school friend, an A-grade pupil who discovered he could make more money in the real world by dealing drugs. Not for Shifty being "stuck in a warehouse, knocking out dodgy Fruit Of The Loom". Had things worked out differently, we can easily imagine him popping up on 'The Apprentice', back-chatting Sir Alan.

Creevy eschews the woozy, art-house ambiance of Duane Hopkins' Better Things - another portrait of a drug-decimated community - for naturalistic dialogue and performances within carefully framed and composed shots; properly cinematic, grown-up direction. Though we never get the impression we're watching a wildly original cinematic voice, it's refreshing to encounter a film featuring gritty, 'urban' subject matter that hasn't been shot with a hyperventilating DV camera.

This relative stillness and subtlety gives rise to moments of exceptional power. During one scene, Shifty delivers to posh, pensionable hippie Valerie (Francesca Annis), in a grimy council flat littered with Moroccan tat and dead, stiff cats. It is safe to assume this is a long way from where she imagined she was going to end up. After everybody has had a nice cup of tea, Chris and Shifty hunch embarrassedly on the opposite sofa in silence, while Valerie gratefully sucks on the pipe, gently collapsing back into her chair, as muffled, moronic techno from the flat upstairs leaks through the ceiling into the room.

Such damn fine film-making reflects well on Shifty's sponsor, the Microwave project, which gives aspiring UK indie filmmakers a chance, a mentor, and some money to help realise their dreams. The catch: they have to turn their movie around in just 18 days on a budget of £100,000. While everyone, from caterers to star actors are paid the same, inducing a more democratic vibe on set. Heathrow horror Mum & Dad, released on Boxing Day 2008, was the first film to be made under the scheme. Shifty is the second. There are eight more to come.

I'm pretty bored of gritty drug dramas, but thankful that I didn't pass this one up.

In short the film follows the day in the life of a dealer: Shifty and his best friend Chris.

Chris left Shifty high and dry and made a break for Manchester after a tragic event. And the beginning of the film sees his return to make reparations with his old friend. Chris used to be a dealer but is slowly building a future for himself. Shifty sells drugs. He earns plenty of money and is a slave to the job - but he's not living a champagne lifestyle or snorting his wares. Instead he's living a meagre existence. Travelling by foot to do drops and living with his brother Rez - under the pretence that he's a little lost and hopeless - which is wearing a little thin on his close family.

In the following 24 hours, Chris tags alongside Shifty. Chris is witness to a pick up, some drops and the desperation of addiction while walking his old haunts. He advices Shifty to get out while he can. Both Chris and Shifty have some unresolved issues but their bondage triumphs. We see the scars, torment and betrayal wrought from both dealers and users, especially to those closest to them.

The film is neither overtly violent, nor does it glorify drug use, or drug careers. Quite the opposite. There's a few small laughs thrown in. It is not a laugh a minute like Adam and Paul, Trainspotting or Pulp Fiction. It is however a little uncomfortable to watch, mainly because it's depressingly familiar. I found myself wishing the characters out of their dead end and empty lives.

Sadly I couldn't find any love in my heart for Shifty, wanting to see some morsel of remorse for his crimes. On the other hand Chris I forgave early on. Both Chris and Rez were both likable.

I can't help but like Daniel Mays, his face is just fantastic. Nitin Ganatra is wonderful and Riz Ahmed is flawless. I'm not sure if the film could have worked without any of them. I'd like to see them all in something a little more jolly!

This can't have been the easiest script to act, but all parties do so with aplomb. Great pace, great cast, great shots - a cohesive love laboured piece of artistry.