Fifty years after Malcolm McDowell celebrated the idea of how good it is to be bad in Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and thirty years after John Singleton evaluated the needs of the streets of Los Angeles in the ground-breaking game changer BOYZ ‘N THE HOOD, things remain constant in a tough London neighbourhood for one disenfranchised youth in the new urban indie YES-MAN.
The character who seemingly wishes to ask for three bags full of weed with little or ‘No Sir’ in the process is Darrell (Kieton Saunders-Browne), an intern at a classic London arrangement, who is belittled and bullied by female middle-managers, but finds his heart after a stint in prison amongst the less-commoners who remain the same on a housing estate.
His parents, Amy (Emma Elizabeth Wright) and Greg (Adrian ‘Gatta’ Grant) want more for him, but after they find drugs in his room, they inevitably kick him out and the streets are too good – or too bad – to pass up. Into his life comes Julie (Nash Hernandez) someone who has escaped the unwritten laws of the estate and takes a shine to him, but past legacy and faith are proving to be too irresistible for Darrell, who wants to be the man to say no….
Writer-director Daniel Glenn-Barbour’s knowing if all-too-familiar London tough-nut drama encompasses the style of Singleton, The Hughes Brothers and Noel Clarke’s ‘HOOD trilogy, heading down an all-too-familiar road of moral conduct and dilemma with standard conflict scenes of physical and verbal violence.
That said, YES-MAN is still a watchable drama and does at least possess a level of moral ideals against the backdrop of the criminal and violent habits of the characters who inhabit this context. A good young cast embrace the material and there are some neat visual drone shots here to add some semblance of style to the storyline.
The dispiriting thing about this film is that the character remains local and it would be nice going forward in a film like this to see a character leave the estate behind and perhaps see how he would handle a situation elsewhere in London.
Glenn-Barbour does show flair and a competence with his material, with dialogue which is rich in street slang and the clarity of intent is solid.
YES-MAN is now available on Digital Download.
