I have a very basic problem with The Guvnors. It’s not a terrible movie, in terms of the acting and technical aspects. It’s just a lazy retread of something that we’ve seen far too many times before. It tries to put a new twist or two in the mix, and fails. But that’s not my very basic problem with it. No. The reason that I can’t bring myself to like the movie is the fact that it’s built around a core premise that is just nonsense. I’ll sum up the plot and then get back to my complaint.
Harley Sylvester plays a young man who likes to act like the king of his neighbourhood. He’s a punk with a lot of other punks working for him. If anyone has a problem with that then they get marked with a knife, or worse. Unfortunately, he’ll never command the respect that he so desperately yearns. He’s just nothing compared to the kind of guys who used to walk around and get themselves into all kinds of trouble – The Guvnors. The minor legend of The Guvnors was a man named Mitch (Doug Allen), and he long ago left that life behind to do better for himself. But it soon becomes clear that he’ll have to go back. To old friends, old haunts, and old ways.
Gabe Turner, who both wrote and directed this particular piece of deja vu, does what’s expected. He gets people to act tough in different ways, and then eventually pits one kind of toughness against the other. Sadly, viewers have to sit through a film that seems to almost idolise the “good old days” of football hooliganism, when you knew who was fighting who, when the fight was over, and would never have to worry about things going too far. Until, ummmmm, things went too far, as is shown at one point in a flashback. But that’s it. One reminder that football hooliganism could cost lives in a film that casts those characters as noble warriors, men who had a code of conduct missing from the thuggish youths of today. Pardon my language, but I call bullshit on that.
Doug Allen does well as Mitch, and he’s certainly a cool customer to watch as he tries to right a major wrong, and Martin Hancock and Richard Blackwood are very good as a pair of police officers trying to do whatever it takes to make their local community safer again. David Essex and Jay Simpson both do well in supporting roles, with the former especially enjoyable, but Vas Blackwood, Tony Denham and everyone else onscreen are left with little to do. And poor Sylvester, he’s given so much time and space to pout and act tough and move his blade around near people that it just becomes boring. You want someone to just kick his backside, which is clearly the point, but it also becomes impossible to believe that nobody, even those among his own “soldiers”, has given it a good try before now. He’s a coward who just happens to be a coward with a knife and stupid friends.
The Guvnors still almost scrapes itself up to the level of average, but that’s mainly due to a few moments between Allen and the young lad playing his son, and my own kind nature.
WRITER/DIRECTOR: GABE TURNER
STARS: DOUG ALLEN, HARLEY SYLVESTER, DAVID ESSEX, JAY SIMPSON, MARTIN HANCOCK, RICHARD BLACKWOOD, VAS BLACKWOOD, TONY DENHAM,
RUNTIME: 92 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: UK
Film Rating: 
