- Actors: Idris Elba, Gemma Arterton, Ryan Gage
- Director: Jim O'Hanlon
- Disc Format: AC-3, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Region: Region A/1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: Not Rated
- Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
- Release Date: March 7, 2017
- Run Time: 94 minutes
In a tired
formula hindered further by emotional manipulation and melodrama, 100 Streets is a frustratingly
pedestrian take on the interconnecting lives of several unrelated characters
living in a square mile of London.
While the opportunity for representing diversity in a small section of a
metropolis city is available, the narrative in Leon F. Butler’s screenplay
instead prefers contrivances resembling soap opera material. Even a solid cast
can’t save the film from feeling like a bad Crash
rip-off, never coming close to the casual ease with which Robert Altman
utilized this story structure.
The film follows
three carefully constructed narratives, each taking up a different class and
type of citizen existing in the same city. Max (Idris Elba) is a former rugby
player whose bad habit of clinging to his celebrity with the adoration of
groupies and substance abuse is threatening his marriage to former actress
Emily (Gemma Arterton). As a result, Emily has started up an affair with her
photographer ex-boyfriend (Tom Cullen). This leads to predictably high-strung
situations, only slightly original in the choice to have the redemption and
recovery take place more in the middle of the film than in the end.
If Max and Emily embody upper class
problems, taxi driver George (Charlie Creed-Miles) and his wife, Kathy
(Kierston Wareing), represent the working class. In a series of unrelated
events, their story first involves efforts to adopt a child, before suddenly
switching to the melodrama of an unavoidable automobile accident. While George
is by-far the most admirable of the characters, he also feels more like a pawn
in the story manipulations than a fully developed individual.
Although far
less commendable in his behavior, the lower class Kingsley (Franz Drameh) is
one of the more sympathetic contributions to the film. Kingsley is a small-time
drug dealer and hoodlum whose salvation comes somewhat unearned after a chance
encounter with an elderly man named Terence (Ken Stott) during community
service in a cemetery. In one of the only ways the characters are connected
through story, Terence happens to be an old actor friend of Emily, providing
Kingsley with the creative outlet he needs to separate him from the violence on
the streets.
Director Jim
O’Hanlon does a decent job of getting convincing performances from his talented
cast, though too much of the film relies on unrealistic coincidence and an
emotive soundtrack to connect the loose strands of Butler’s narrative. Overall, the entire
endeavor feels a bit forced, even if there are moments elevated by the cast
along the way. More often than not, I found myself wishing that one of these
three storylines had been focused on in more detail and realism, rather than
the contrived effort to connect them all by the streets that they share.
The Blu-ray has
no alternative ways to view the film (DVD, digital copy), and only has one
featurette in the special features. Although it is the solitary extra, the
making-of featurette is fairly in-depth, spending nearly 15-minutes discussing
themes as well as logistics of the shoot. There are interviews with director
O’Hanlon as well as many cast members included in this featurette.
Entertainment Value:
5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 5.5/10
Historical
Significance: 4/10
Special Features: 5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment