Anti-Social *** (2015, Gregg Sulkin, Meghan Markle, Josh Myers) – Movie Review

Writer-director Reg Traviss’s London gangster thriller is quite exciting, well-constructed and stylish, with some thrillingly staged smash and grab sequences.

Gregg Sulkin stars as Dee is an anarchic street-artist confronting the system, Josh Myers plays his half-brother Marcus, an armed robber on a jewellery store crime-wave, and Meghan Markle is Dee’s American model girlfriend.

With gangsters and police shooting it out in Central London, and a full-scale  crime-wave, with deaths, torture, drugs and the rest, some of it is mighty improbable, playing more like a contemporary Western or something that might work in a run-down American city. The brave attempt to flesh out the characters and situations leads to some chatty scenes and an over-long running time, that a small edit would help. The German art scene, and Christian Berkel‘s character Philip, again might seem fresh and different, and flesh it out, but get a bit too much after a bit.

But otherwise, this is pretty good, even quite good for its kind, finding a tiny bit of new space in an overcrowded, if popular area of film-making. The acting is decent too, even if hero and heroine are a bit too good-looking for the movie’s own good. Dee wouldn’t keep his perfect skin eating this kind of junk food!

Interestingly, it’s a Hungary-UK film, so a lot of it must be made in Origo Film Studios, Hungary, and probably on the streets there. But you’d never know, it’s got such a sharp London flavour, one of the best things about it.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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