SUGARHOUSE
UK, 2007, 90 minutes, Colour.
Steven Mackintosh, Ashley Walters, Andy Serkis, Tracy Whitwell.
Directed by Gary Love.
In the last ten years there has been an abundance (over-abundance?) of British gangster film. It’s a fairly limited scope compared with the US gangster world. Here is another.
The action takes place over a few hours one afternoon in East London. Wealthy businessman, Tom (Steven Mackintosh) links up with a black addict, D (Ashley Walters), to buy a gun. He doesn’t know that D has stolen the gun from the local kingpin, Hoodwink (Andy Serkis). Hoodwink wants his gun back as it is a weapon in a murder crime. He confronts D and Tom and then the tables are turned. The other characters are Hoodwink’s pregnant wife who calls him Michael and has a technique for him to calm his habitual rage. There are also three young thugs from the area who also experience Hoodwink’s anger.
There are lots of conversations, a certain rhetoric in the screenplay with D speaking in a more literate way than we might expect. It sounds as if it were adapted from a play – and we discover it is. It is based on a 2001 play by Dominic Leyton who has adapted it for the screen but, while opening out different locations has kept too many speeches. And the performances seem like overacting with Serkis showing hyperkinetic energy. The settings are striking but the film is rather alienating.
1.A British gangster film? Similar to the many gangster films of the 21st century? Different?
2.The East London settings, the underground, the streets, the old warehouses, the estates and the flats? Authentic? The musical score – atmospheric, heavy?
3.The screenplay, based on a play? The amount of talk, rhetoric? Opened out from the play – yet confined to various sets? However, effective – or did it detract from the drama?
4.The acting and directing style? The overacting – the hyperactivity? More being less effective than less?
5.The opening, the introduction to Tom, travelling on the underground, going to East London, his quest? Meeting up with Dee? The discussion, the previous meeting? Wanting to buy a gun? Dee and his incessant talking? Going through the estate, through the park, seeing the little girl whose mother was a prostitute and in the buildings? Going to the warehouse? Dee and his incessant chatter, delaying, asking for the money, wanting the extra fifty pounds? The argument about deposits? His having the gun? Tom and his reaction, insistent on getting the gun, listening to Dee, sympathetically, but in a hurry?
6.The introduction to Hoodwink, naked, the tattoos everywhere, shaving his head, his ice and the water? His anger, with his wife, her pregnancy? Her method of calming him down? Going out, finding Dee, the attack on Tom, the bashing of Dee? Wanting his gun? Dee and his persuading him that Ray had taken the gun? Hoodwink believing him? The phone call, demanding the three young men to come?
7.Hoodwink, kingpin of the estate, brutal, mad, seeing him take the drugs? His attack on Ray and bashing him? Their persuading him that Dee actually had the gun? His attack on Dee? Tom and the plans with the gun, emptying the bullets? Pulling the gun on Hoodwink? Falling, dropping the bullets? Hoodwink and his getting the gun? The confrontation, the arguments? Dee putting the bullets in, killing Hoodwink?
8.The background of Hoodwink at home, his pregnant wife, Paul coming to take the drugs, his being able to change his personality?
9.The three young men, part of the gang, one wanting to study, the other in the factory? Their interactions with each other? At Hoodwink’s beck and call? The violence?
10.Tom and Dee and their talking, Tom’s name of Horatio? Dee giving the explanation of his life, orphan, he without his mother, the effect on him, a crack addict? His referring to Tom as the rich man? Tom, the story for why he wanted the gun, his wife of six years, the child not his, going off with somebody he knew? The irony of his wanting his gun to kill himself?
11.The two of them going off, some kind of understanding? Passing the little girl sitting in the park?
12.Portrait of London characters? East London? The drug and gangster culture? The wealthy and their relying on contacts in this world? How effective the characters, the portrait, the issues?
