Broth­er­hood

Like an urban Har­ry Pot­ter, Sam Peel has grown up in front of his audi­ence. Shift­ing from Lad­broke Grove to Shepherd’s Bush, he’s made a home for his lawyer wife and two young chil­dren despite a tur­bu­lent child­hood (that was one of the movies, right?). But, like the human boomerang he is, Noël Clarke help­less­ly returns as the man who can’t say no to the life he strug­gled so hard to leave. It’s back to the streets in the final chap­ter of this ​“hood” odyssey. For the last time, a mid­dle fin­ger is ded­i­cat­ed to Richard Cur­tis’ rose-tint­ed ren­der­ing of West London.

Kidult­hood was a film which left a foot­print on the face of British cin­e­ma. The unglam­orous cul­ture of slang-sling­ing teens at the bot­tom of the social bar­rel became more vis­i­ble. With the excep­tion of Jason Maza’s car­toon­ish Daley, this male-led cast doesn’t dis­ap­point. Arnold Oceng as unwill­ing get­away dri­ver, Hen­ry, steals the show, pro­vid­ing the com­ic edge that is unique to the tril­o­gy. Although Clarke, too, gives an impres­sive, emo­tion­al per­for­mance, his Sam is an unin­spir­ing hero. By repeat­ing the same tired mis­steps, he’s more bur­den than lion-heart. It begs the ques­tion, is this real­ly the end? Or will he be scratch­ing his way out of more trou­ble in Man­hood or Fatherhood?

On the down side, strong, female char­ac­ters are notice­ably absent. Women in Broth­er­hood are most­ly naked, uncom­pli­cat­ed or silent. When giv­en a voice, it is to obsess over the men who have wronged them. The boys are left to fight it out while the ​“slags” sit grate­ful­ly in their laps. Even when dis­af­fect­ed Pop­py (Rosa Coduri) dares to chal­lenge this bla­tant patri­archy, she is instant­ly sup­pressed by her male peers. What­ev­er lifestyle the film is cham­pi­oning doesn’t, quite frankly, cut it for the girls.

The film holds its own as a flaws-and-all love let­ter to street cul­ture. For every quant, mid­dle-class por­trait of Lon­don, there must be a Broth­er­hood to act as a counter-bal­ance. It is through recog­nis­ing diver­si­ty that the equi­lib­ri­um of the cre­ative indus­try is main­tained. Sam Peel is not wor­thy of the tri­umphant, all-guns-blaz­ing exit this dra­ma serves up. Yet Noël Clarke – and his crim­i­nal­ly hon­est approach to film­mak­ing – deserves it ten times over.