Vs

Thanks to rise of grime, UK rap has nev­er been more vis­i­ble in the main­stream, with artists such as Gig­gs, Skep­ta and Stor­mzy all achiev­ing inter­na­tion­al suc­cess. Accord­ing­ly we should brace for plen­ty of films on the sub­ject, as pro­duc­ers look to cap­i­talise on the genre’s mass appeal. One such pro­duc­tion, Vs, posi­tions itself as the British equiv­a­lent to 8 Mile, focus­ing on Southend’s under­ground rap bat­tle scene. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Thames Estu­ary fails in its bid to repli­cate Detroit as a com­pelling rap bat­tle location.

The film is cen­tred around trou­bled teen Adam (Conor Swindells), an angry white ado­les­cent who is passed around fos­ter homes, the lat­est of which is locat­ed in Southend and owned by Fiona (Ruth Sheen). He quick­ly befriends local pro­mot­er Makay­la (an ener­getic Fola Evans-Aking­bo­la), who intro­duces him to the area’s bat­tle rap scene, where Adam becomes a fan favourite and finds an avenue to shed the rage he still feels over being aban­doned by his mother.

A big prob­lem with Vs is that the bat­tle rap scenes aren’t that mem­o­rable. Shot with­out a back­ing track, the lack of music sucks all the ener­gy out of the cast’s per­for­mances, while out­dat­ed ref­er­ences (to Ice‑T and Kanye) and a fas­ci­na­tion with homo­pho­bic slurs makes it feel like Vs has tak­en more inspi­ra­tion from 2004 than 2018.

The film is at its strongest when it explores how kids like Adam are passed through the sys­tem. White work­ing class boys are the biggest under­achiev­ers in mod­ern Britain and the pain in Swindells’ des­per­ate eyes goes a long way in explor­ing the pres­sures that could be fuelling this cul­ture of fail­ure. Vs also sheds a light on dis­en­fran­chised youth as Adam befriends a young moth­er also strug­gling to find her place in an unequal Britain. Direc­tor Ed Lil­ly would have been wise to focus more on these grim real­i­ties, as his film doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to mir­ror the social real­ism of a Ken Loach dra­ma or the sick­ly ide­al­ism of a trashy teen soap. Ulti­mate­ly, the lat­ter prevails.

In tal­ent­ed new­com­er Swindells, Vs might just have unearthed a future star – it’s just a shame the film itself is so pre­dictable. The pay off, an emo­tion­al bat­tle rap staged at Southend pier, where Adam is final­ly reunit­ed with his moth­er, feels corny; Lil­ly plays to a teenage crowd to a fault. This cli­max – which sees two white rap­pers scream­ing insults at one anoth­er – rais­es the ques­tion of whether Vs should have avoid­ed the clichés of the out­sider white rap­per altogether.

Giv­en the rise of grime – a cul­ture built around black British youth rebelling against a white garage music scene that had reject­ed them – it’s dis­ap­point­ing to have yet anoth­er film about a white rap­per. The UK film indus­try in par­tic­u­lar des­per­ate­ly needs more sto­ries about the black expe­ri­ence, and as such Vs feels like a missed opportunity.