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Low-budget British films tend to more often than not be crime or gang films, and Reg Traviss’ latest is no exception, though it offers a little bit more than just a regular gang-war plotline, though it doesn’t make it better or more interesting than other films of its genre.
It tells the story of two brothers, one who leads a gang who are doing a series of jewellery-store robberies on motorbikes, and the other who is a Graffiti-artist, trying to keep street art from losing it’s integrity. Marcus (Josh Myers), the jewellery thief finds himself falling deeper into a gang war than him and his crew can handle, while at the same time, his brother, Dee (Gregg Sulkin), seems to be making something of himself in the art world, and getting ready to move to Berlin with model-girlfriend Kirsten (Meghan Markle). Just before leaving to Berlin, Dee gets pulled into help Marcus’ gang to try and help them out.
The whole idea of the storyline is that these are two brothers who have to fight the establishment, in their own way, but neither seems to really be fighting anything. Dee’s graffiti doesn’t have a particular message behind it, he’s just good at what he does, and the opportunity to get out of his world and move to Berlin seems to just fall into his lap. His brother is just quite simply a robber, that’s how he makes his money, there’s no particular stance he’s taking by doing this, it’s what he does. It’s not really even related to the gang war they get themselves into. And this is all fine, but the film should have left this whole ‘fight the establishment’ thing alone, and focused on the brothers as they are. A non-existent reason for why they do what they do might make more sense than a half-baked one.
Apart from Gregg Sulkin and Meghan Markle, none of the performances are particularly easy to watch, though that might partly be down to terribly written characters and dialogue. Dee having an American girlfriend does eventually make sense, though why they’re together or how they even got to know each other is never explained, and it’s pretty unbelievable. Casting Markle is an impressive coup though, considering the scale of the film, and she is fairly recognisable thanks to her role as Rachel on Suits, the US legal TV drama.
Unfortunately there isn’t much to Anti-Social that is worth talking about. It’s a pretty straightforward London crime film, that sort of starts with something that might go somewhere, but that idea doesn’t really take off. A rewrite or two (or an entirely new writer) might have gotten it somewhere, but as it is, it’s very average.
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