Meadows low budget debut feature. Includes superb performances from Bob Hoskins and a cast of unknowns.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20232 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-06-30
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Black & White, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Gritty British social realism gets the Rocky treatment as a group of working-class no-hopers in rundown 1980s Nottingham learn the value of discipline and commitment through the art of boxing. Bob Hoskins is hugely sympathetic as Alan Darcy, the tough-love coach who drags two opposing gangs of miscreants off the streets and into the gym. Although Darcy hopes to offer his boys more than their usual existence of "taking shit twenty four seven" (i.e. all the time), his plans are soon thwarted by one physically abusive father, a drug-addicted boxer, and interference from the gym's crooked underwriter Ronnie Marsh (Frank Harper).

The feature debut from acclaimed short-film director Shane Meadows, Twenty Four Seven is a good-looking smartly paced parable that skirts around its larger social issues in favour of knockabout humour and neat narrative resolution. Kitchen-sink realism comes courtesy of the silvery black-and-white film stock shot by cinematographer Ashley Rowe, while the relentlessly upbeat mood is aided and abetted by soundtrack tunes from The Charlatans, Paul Weller, Tim Buckley and others. As mentioned, Hoskins does a sterling job as the gentle giant hiding a cauldron of suppressed rage, yet the junior players often blend into an interchangeable amalgam of spunky but anonymous youth. Elsewhere there's some skewed logic in the script (the boys agree to try boxing after missing penalty shoot-outs with Darcy), and some wasted scenes (a trip to Wales becomes an extended musical montage-"and cue Charlatans!"), but generally Meadows has kept his tale engagingly intimate and small-scale. If anything, this leaves you with the feeling this rising director has bitten off only a fraction of what you suspect his talents can chew. --Kevin Maher

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Wide Screen
DVD 5
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo English
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Director And Writer Commentary
Original Theatrical Trailer
Three Tears For Jimmy Prophet
Scene Access
Interactive Menus

Synopsis
From the poverty and despair of an English industrial town, one man with a dream (Bob Hoskins) forms a boxing club to give troubled teenagers a fighting chance. The lads learn lessons of self-respect and male bonding, but amidst the triumph of the biggest tournament of their lives, tragedy strikes. Shane Meadows' debut features gritty black-and-white cinematography that perfectly captures the desolation of working-class life in post-Thatcher Britain.

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Customer Reviews

So moving - it literally makes grown men cry...
It took me ages to get round to seeing this film, even though I was living in Nottingham at the time it was filmed & released (indeed, I recognised the actor playing Fagash from his time working at the Broadway Cinema bar).

A lot of reviews are misleading and off-putting. Yes, it's about Bob Hoskins setting up a boxing club to give some inner-city kids some hope - that sounds trite and in the wrong hands it would be. What makes this film special is the real depth the actors bring to their characters and the lack of over-sentimentality, punctuated with wit.

It's so poignant, Bob Hoskins can portray so many emotions at the same time.

It really is one of the best British films ever made, along with the other Shane Meadows films. Gritty, sad, poetic and funny - definitely recommended.

Lyrical
After the short 'Where's The Money, Ronnie?' and the not-so-short 'Small Time', Lord Shane Meadows of Eldon's first feature film is this snappy black-and-white urban drama. Darcy (Bob Hoskins) is sick of seeing the local youths at each other's throats, so forms a boxing club to bring them together. It is a laudable plan; something to offer control and direction to a disaffected generation.

Meadows' greatest talent is in presenting a truthful working class landscape sympathetically, but without being patronising. Our heroes are disadvantaged, often stricken by a fearsome domestic environment (none more so than Danny Nussbaum's Tim); and yet they are also kind, witty, hungry, and joyful. The scenes in which Darcy brings the boys to Wales, with Ashley Rowe's sumptuous cinematography and Hoskin's lyrical voiceover, are so vibrant it's as if they're filmed in colour. It's quite something to find drama in scenes of great happiness, when the conflict is left at home - but Meadows always seems to find it, and that's what makes his films vital and real.

Rainbows in black and white
"Twenty Four Seven" tells the tale of Alan Darcy's (Hoskins) attempts to open a boxing club to give the local youths something to do. He remembers when he went to the boxing club held in the same building when he was young and wants to provide the same for the kids today. Before he can get them to fight in the ring he needs to get them to stop fighting between themselves out of it.

Hoskins plays his part well enough, but I think he puts on too much of a "northern" accent considering it is set in Nottingham. You believe in the character and what he is trying to do. Performance of the day goes to Danny Nussbaum playing Tim. He puts up with his ill-tempered, foul-mouthed father until one day it all gets too much, but at the end of the day you see his loyalty to his family after all they've been through.

I have no idea why this was filmed in black and white. I don't think it adds to the atmosphere, it just makes you feel a little cut off from it all.

Music is fitting to the plot, the choice of The Charlatans' "North Country Boy" goes particularly well with the scenes set in the Welsh countryside.

It's an average film with an average twist towards the end.

Also on the disc is a short film by the same director, Shane Meadows. "Three Tears for Jimmy Prophet" tells the tale of a boxer who loses everything he has in life after one bad tempered mistake. This short film is as good as, perhaps better than the feature.

You also get the theatrical trailer for "Twenty Four Seven" and a commentary by the director (Shane Meadows) and writer (Paul Fraser).

A DVD for boxing fans primarilly, and fans of small time British cinema. I don't think casual film fans will enjoy it overly but it is a nice addition to a larger DVD collection.