Hard Tide

Mar­gate is a typ­i­cal British sea­side town. Its beach­es may seem bar­ren and bleak in the win­ter months, but they bus­tle at the first sign of sun as droves of scant­i­ly clad rev­ellers flock to its glis­ten­ing shore­line. Yet the post­card façade only tells one side of the sto­ry. In Nathanael Wise­man and Robert Osman’s crime dra­ma, Hard Tide, sun­ny skies turn grey and dour, pre­sent­ing Mar­gate as a murky under­world where sur­vival prospects seem dim, come rain or shine.

Jake (Wise­man) is a small-time drug deal­er on the cusp of becom­ing the town’s big shot king­pin by tak­ing over the fam­i­ly busi­ness from his dad (Ralph Brown). Grandiose plans to scale-up from coun­cil estate to man­sion are com­pli­cat­ed, how­ev­er, when an unex­pect­ed twist forces Jake to take care of Jade (Alexan­dra Newick), a pre­co­cious nine-year old from a sim­i­lar­ly bro­ken home. This new found respon­si­bil­i­ty caus­es ten­sion between Jake and his busi­ness part­ner, Alfie (Oliv­er Stark), and the das­tard­ly rival drug baron, Simon Flow­ers (Mem Ferda).

Wise­man and Osman’s direc­to­r­i­al style works from a basic tem­plate of grim social real­ism, but this is under­cut by the fact that the char­ac­ters them­selves rarely feel cred­i­ble. This is exem­pli­fied in a scene involv­ing Jake slouched on the sofa, watch­ing Jere­my Kyle with a thick sil­ver chain around his neck. This crude work­ing class stereo­type extends to Flow­ers, his crazed stare and demon­ic cack­le often bor­der­ing on slap­stick. This only serves to soft­en the edge on some of the film’s more tense moments.

Yet the ques­tion­able char­ac­ter and plot choic­es are sal­vaged when it comes to the del­i­cate­ly formed rela­tion­ship between Jake and Jade. When togeth­er on screen, there’s a sin­cer­i­ty to the per­for­mances that duly ele­vates the film, imbu­ing it with a gen­uine sense of pathos. The pair vent­ing sim­i­lar frus­tra­tions towards The Sys­tem and the ter­ri­ble cards they have been dealt. Stark also impress­es in his sup­port­ing turn as the cocky best mate who is all at once guard­ed and vulnerable.

A lit­tle rough around the edges, but Hard Tide is a noble debut effort. Sol­id per­for­mances prove to be the film’s sav­ing grace, pro­vid­ing depth to what could have oth­er­wise been dis­missed as a(nother) low-rent gang­ster flick.