Tuesday 16 June 2020

Blue Story (2020) - Movie Review



In terms of hip-hop aesthetic on film, this might be one of the most direct examples I’ve covered on here. The feature-length directorial debut of Andrew Onwubolu, also known as Rapman (which somehow bests Director X for most generic music video director name I’ve ever heard), this South London crime drama shows Rapman himself serving as Greek chorus, jumping in at certain key moments to provide rapped narration. As part of the bigger presentation, with the story of two teenaged friends pushed to opposite ends of a gang war by cruel coincidence, it’s a decent enough idea in theory. But in practice, it ends up dragging down what is otherwise a quite efficient slice of dramatic grit.

Anchored by lead actors Stephen Odubola and Micheal Ward as Timmy and Marco respectively, Rapman’s dialogue conveys plentiful local slang and street knowledge to highlight what pushes these two men into their corners, and the prevailing attitudes of those around them that eased them on their way. It shows the ingrained gang-banging macho posturing that promotes aggressive action over any moment of cool-down, tapping into plain-faced reality rather than condescending to any of the personas on-screen about their actions.

However, that’s not to say that there isn’t any condescension going on with the storytelling; just that it seems to be mainly relegated towards the audience, and it’s here where the narration rears its ugly head. It starts off on a decent foot with Rapman’s introduction setting the scene, but the more he interjects, the more his entire reason to be part of the storytelling comes into question. The narration largely consists of recapping scenes in the film pretty much right after they’re shown, all accompanied with the same plinky piano instrumental that makes the whole thing feel like Children’s Story, as staged for actual children. Ill Manors, this is not.

That Very Special Episode tone makes the story itself, which is rather been-here-done-that as far as street yarns are concerned (albeit highlighted within a new-ish locale, given Peckham’s place as the go-to ‘rough side of town’ name-checker for British comedians), a bit difficult to fully appreciate… but not by that much. When it pushes for poignancy in the decay of Timmy and Marco’s friendship, and the thick haze of gun smoke and petrol fumes that keep obscuring what’s right in front of them, it certainly hits home and the ending is suitably tragic and affecting because of it.

Ultimately, this isn’t a bad film as much as it suffers from a bit of adaptation sickness, since it’s based on Rapman’s YouTube mini-series of the same name where he basically narrated the bulk of the story in this style. But when put next to more linguistically-involved presentation, and actors who can more than deliver the pathos on their own, it doesn’t work nearly as well. This should’ve either been a straight-forward feature without the narration, or maybe a concept album where the songs do all the storytelling, both perfectly viable options. As it is, though, it’s stuck unfortunately in the middle, turning what should have been an easy recommendation from yours truly into “yeah, it was alright”.

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