MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Down 119 this week

Wild Bill (2011)

 -  Drama  -  23 March 2012 (UK)
7.1
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.1/10 from 6,067 users  
Reviews: 20 user | 48 critic

Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring... See full summary »

Director:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 577 titles created 18 Jul 2011
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 622 titles created 06 Jun 2011
 
a list of 3595 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 9 titles created 3 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Wild Bill (2011)

Wild Bill (2011) on IMDb 7.1/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Wild Bill.
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 5 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

End of Watch (2012)
Action | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Shot documentary-style, this film follows the daily grind of two young police officers in LA who are partners and friends, and what happens when they meet criminal forces greater than themselves.

Director: David Ayer
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick
Gran Torino (2008)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.2/10 X  

Disgruntled Korean War vet Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang
Crime | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A sleazy defense attorney has a crisis of conscience when he represents a wealthy client who has a foolproof plan to beat the system.

Director: Brad Furman
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe
Adventure | Western
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Tyrannosaur (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

Joseph, a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction, earns a chance of redemption that appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker.

Director: Paddy Considine
Stars: Peter Mullan, Archie Lal, Jag Sanghera
Flight I (2012)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

An airline pilot saves almost all his passengers on his malfunctioning airliner which eventually crashed, but an investigation into the accident reveals something troubling.

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Stars: Nadine Velazquez, Denzel Washington, John Goodman
Moneyball (2011)
Biography | Drama | Sport
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.

Director: Bennett Miller
Stars: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail.

Director: George Clooney
Stars: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman
The Way Back I (2010)
Adventure | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

Siberian gulag escapees walk 4000 miles overland to freedom in India.

Director: Peter Weir
Stars: Colin Farrell, Mark Strong, Jim Sturgess
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.1/10 X  

An introvert freshman is taken under the wings of two seniors who welcome him to the real world.

Director: Stephen Chbosky
Stars: Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd
The Help (2011)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids' point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

Director: Tate Taylor
Stars: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard
Comedy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A pair of young lovers flee their New England town, which causes a local search party to fan out and find them.

Director: Wes Anderson
Stars: Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Jared Gilman
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Wild Bill
...
Dean
Sammy Williams ...
Jimmy
...
Pill
...
Steph
Rain Ryan ...
Baby George
...
Adam
Peter McCabe ...
Roland
...
Viktoras
...
Jonas (as Rad Kaim)
Aaron Ishmael ...
Boz
...
Roxy
Hardeep Singh Kohli ...
Raj
...
Dickie
...
Terry
Edit

Storyline

Out on parole after 8 years inside Bill Hayward returns home to find his now 11 and 15 year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, an uncaring Bill is determined to move on. Although Dean the older boy has found a job and is doing his best to be a father to his younger brother Jimmy, the arrival of Bill has brought them to the attention of social services. With the danger of being put into care looming, Dean forces his feckless Dad to stay by threatening to grass him up for dealing. If there's one thing Bill doesn't want it's to go back to prison. He reluctantly agrees to stay for a week o help fool social services that the boys are being cared for. Having never really grown up himself Bill quickly connects with Jimmy and through this new bond starts to realize what he's been missing. He has a family, a place in the world. He is a father. However, their happy family set up is short lived when Jimmy gets into trouble with Bill's dangerous ... Written by Anonymous

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Genres:

Drama

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

|

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

23 March 2012 (UK)  »

Filming Locations:

 »

Company Credits

Production Co:

 »
Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Directorial debut of Dexter Fletcher. See more »

Connections

References Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) See more »

Soundtracks

"Bitter"
Performed by This Is Freedom
Written by Jon Scott, Ben Collard, Henry Swash, Dan Graham
Publishing Copyright Control
Master Recording courtesy of This Is Freedom
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
The best British gangster film of recent years. Poignant and pub-filled
21 December 2012 | by (Denmark) – See all my reviews

Since Guy Ritchie's 1998 feature debut Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, British drama has been obsessed with clichéd gangster movies. They're relatively low cost to make, quick turnaround shoots with huge box office opportunity. Stylistically a mixture of fifties kitchen sink drama and the angry young men fronted British New Wave, the genre today has quickly become an outmoded self-parody, in desperate need of revitalising. Along comes venerable actor Dexter Fletcher. Rising from the fag ash of Guy Ritchie's Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, his first foray into filmmaking takes the same hackneyed themes of…Hackney, and tells a new story full of satire, sincerity and heart.

After eight years behind bars, "Wild Bill" Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) returns home to his family in their tower block home. The wife is nowhere to be seen, abandoning their two children – paternal teenager Dean (Will Poulter) and his potty mouthed brother Jimmy (Sammy Williams) – for the sunny sights of Spain with her new boyfriend.

A tough nestle back in to normality, the broken home soon leads to social services reps (Jaime Winstone and Jason Flemyng) asking questions. They fend them off by pretending to play happy families, but the bossy Dean tells his work-shy dad to go straight and get a job. Doing porridge has changed the ex-drug dealer, but unfortunately the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as Jimmy is accosted by local thug Terry (Leo Gregory) as a drug mule. Fighting for his freedom on the outside, Bill steps back in to the game, saving his son and taking a quick crash course on parenthood in the process.

Whilst the story is far from revolutionary, Fletcher and his writing partner Danny King have crafted a truly excellent script, which is neither excessively ghettoized, nor saccharine. The good works lead to good performances too, particularly from Son of Rambow's Bill Poultner, showing great range as the apathetic teenager turned surrogate father figure. Virtually a non-budget movie, it's clear that Fletcher went through the phonebook and asked for a few favours of his supporting cast. Everyone's here: the compelling Olivia Williams as the concerned social worker, Sean Pertwee as the no-nonsense constable who through Bill in the slammer those eight years ago and, best of all, Andy Serkis puts down the motion capture play things for a menacing performance as an East London mafioso. I wish he put down the motion capture play things and started doing more straight-up screen performances; his animated face-acting is always a scene stealer.

Unfortunately there is some duds amongst all the finite work. Misfits' Iwan Rhoen is insufferable as a slang-tastic hoodlum – so much that he even starts to annoy his co-stars. Newcomer Liz White's turn as an abused call girl is too flippant and lacks character depth. The biggest disappointment comes from Wild Bill himself. Sublime as a drugged-up Billy incarnate in Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth, he is too emotionally uncharged throughout.

Evenstill, it's still a brilliant debut from Fletcher. Working on film sets since the young age of ten when he played Baby Face in Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone, he clearly has a deep insight of how to craft a story, shoot a scene and carve out some solid performances. All that, plus a great ska fever soundtrack and the best pub-fight sequence since Shaun of the Dead. It's as good as a gangster film can get. Let's hope he puts down the faux-Burberry scarves and trade them in for invigorated, ambitious new material.

Read more reviews now at www.366movies.com


0 of 1 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
A great night in.. for thick chavs Danielovitch
Best pub fight scene of all time? DirkD13
When will this be released? lukefan
Spike's directorial debut smeg-4-brains
a Star in the making purrshaped
Very Much Looking Forward to this Film bboyminn
Discuss Wild Bill (2011) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?