24/7: TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN

UK, 1997, 96 minutes, Black and white.
Bob Hoskins, Danny Nussbaum, Bruce Jones, Annette Badland.
Directed by Shayne Meadows.

Early in this slice-of-life small-budget British film, Bob Hoskins as boxing coach, Darcy, confides to his diary that each of the young men that he is trying to help by setting up a boxing club is not strong enough, of himself, to make a move to get out of his rut. But, with each other, as a group working together, they can. This is a major theme of this fine film, a film that offers hope without being misty-eyed or thinking that every crisis has a neatly happy ending.

26 year-old, Shane Meadows, co-wrote and directed this film about life on the edges of a Midlands city and has made a noteworthy first feature. He has drawn on his own experience and it looks and sounds it. It is what is often called 'gritty realism'. We are in Loach, Leigh and, now, Oldman territory and not too far from the Yorkshire of Brassed Off and The Full Monty. But Meadows has opted not make a kind of grunge Rocky. And he has opted for black and white photography and a range of contemporary thematic songs as mood for his portrait of Darcy and his struggles to help the young men better themselves. There is a sequence towards the end when Darcy finds that one of his boxers that he gone to court for and guaranteed that he will not go back on drugs has overdosed. He cares for him with great tenderness and without any mawkishness. Meadows has elicited from Hoskins and his cast, both of young men and of their families, convincingly realistic performances.

The initial aimlessness of the men is contrasted with their homes (but, surprisingly, minimum sexual relationships). Tim (Danny Nussbaum) who finds the down and out Darcy as the film opens and reads through Darcy's often poetic diary as the framework for flashbacks comes from a home with a battered mother and compulsively negative father (Bruce Jones, the father in Loach's Raining Stones). The film grows on you. It is a cry from a contemporary depressed society even, ultimately from Darcy, offering leads but no pat ending. An authentic cry for help.

1.Shayne Meadows and his work, his background in the English Midlands, his perspectives on UK society?

2.The black and white photography, the Midlands town, the boxing arena, the countryside? The range of the musical score, accompaniment, choir …?

3.The introduction to the town, the rail tracks, the bridge, the trailer, Tim finding Darcy, helping him, the diary, Tim reading it? The introduction to the flashbacks?

4.The town and the groups of young men, employed or not, their personalities, backgrounds, ethnic differences, their clashes, fighting each other, confronting each other?

5.The different families, Tim and his father, his father and his aggressiveness, his long-suffering wife, verbal abuse, the father and his capacity to disrupt, taunting, the rivalry with Darcy, spoiling the boxing event, fighting Darcy, being bashed yet laughing, at the end alone? The changes in his family? The father with the fat boy, his parents, paying, encouraging him, the boy becoming Darcy’s assistant?

6.Darcy and his background in the town, his challenging the group, the soccer and the goals, their having to go to the club, the other young men and the training? The bouts, the young man losing his temper in the ring, Darcy and his explanations of control? The boxing and the variety of groups? Tensions? Trust in Darcy? The challenges, the young men believing in themselves?

7.The young man with the drugs, in bed, Darcy confronting him, dragging him to the court, pleading his case, forcing him to come to the boxing?

8.Darcy and his diary, the poems, his perceptions about the town and the boys? His learning to dance? Preparing to go, successful at dancing?

9.Darcy, his social concern, his own background, the possibilities for the young men?

10.The build-up to the climax, success, the evening of boxing, the father and his interruption, the consequent fight?

11.Darcy and his loss of control, bashing the father, his shame, retreating, Tim helping him, his death?

12.Everybody at the funeral, the camera focusing on each group in the church and giving the audience time to reflect on what had happened to them?

13.The film as a mirror of people and the times? The film as an urge to hope and courage?