Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

GUENOT PHILIPPE After the viewing of this film, I thought about LITTLE ODESSA in this scheme of a young boy fascinated by his elder bro. Of course the story is besides not exactly the same, and the settings either, but who cares? This is a true gritty crime drama, although maybe more drama, social picture of today UK, than authentic crime topic. UK has always been over the top in social stories. Top performances too, more than real.

cutewildstyle This film will be a painful mirroring of every day life for anyone living in one of London's gun infested boroughs. It portrays the difficulty faced by young black men who lack male authority figures and are brought up in a culture of violence driven kudos and the economic reality of having no education and very little hope. It also shows the pain of a family, caught up in a situation that they don't understand and can't control.It succeeds in painting the truly unglamourous picture of life on an east London housing estate, where to lose face could mean death. Ashley Walters is superb as the fresh out of jail Ricky. He embodies the chaotic nature of a young man, struggling to accept authority, wrestling with his notion of what is right and gaining the respect of his peers. All this in the context of being a young offender, facing a life of menial labour and rejection, by a society that he barely belongs to.The script is very economical and realistic and it has been shot in a hand-held, docudrama style, which lends itself perfectly to the subject matter.I would caution anyone looking for an entertaining movie about London gangsters or punchy one liners. This film does nothing to glamorise gun culture in London. It doesn't dilute it's grimness with humour or irrelevant subplots and it doesn't shy away from showing some of the more appalling aspects of modern gang culture.It has had accusations of stereotypical characters and situations levelled at it, but speaking as somebody who has grown up surrounded by guns and drug crime, I can tell you reliably that these characters exist, as do the situations that occur in the film. It isn't funny, there are no jokes and everyday life really is a struggle for survival. If anything, the filmmakers have made a concession to the viewer and resisted showing the full horror of what can happen to you if you diss somebody publicly. This film has more importance as a historical document than a piece of aesthetic beauty. If you want more posturing and drama you might prefer 'Kidulthood' but for the sheer reality factor, you can't go wrong with 'Bullet Boy'.Cutewildstyle, Peckham, London 2008

tez I would like to start off saying that I appreciated the movie for dealing with the black community in London. No rude cockney gangsters, catchy crime scams or laughably stupid dope dealers. The family this movie deals with is a single mum home with two sons, one just out of prison, the other still too young to be involved in anything hazardous, but looking up at his brother and already copying some of his ways.I enjoyed the language and the characters who were all convincing and complex enough but, how carefully put down they were, the more obvious and stereotypical were the things happening to them. Everything going from bad to worse, who plays with fire is gonna get burnt. And then the ultimate contrast of either sinking into crime and sin (devil), or choosing the righteous path and go to church every Sunday (god).This easy moralism hurt the rest of the film. It made things predictable. It was like a newspaper article collage, one shock after the other. It took away much of the complexity that I found in the characters themselves. It really is a shame because the development of the characters could have been much more subtle and would have fit in better with the style of the movie that deals with a gritty context matter but managed to use a soft and sometimes almost dreamy camera and score, not unlike other recent British films, such a 'Morvern Callar' and '16 Years of alcohol'.

JesseFajemisin The main aspect of this production I appreciate is the authenticity and realism (as you could probably tell from the summary). As a black 17 year old who has grown up in "the streets", I took great pleasure in witnessing what I believe to be the FIRST British PRODUCTION to capture the realism when portraying "the streets", with the dialogue being the main feature of that.The way this comment has been written may not lead you to believe that it has been devised by someone that has grown up in similar conditions to the film, so you may be puzzled and think "Why would he bother about how they sound?", the way I speak when with certain friends that I have grown up with is different obviously to the way my education ad A-Level English Literature teachers have taught me to write. Therefore, to see my dialect finally emerge without the creators having to refer to the false "Ali G Handbook on how to talk street' is refreshing.The issues around guns that it is tackling is also refreshing to see, as the government and media tend to create scapegoats and leave the issue at that, rather than explore the roots of why things like guns tend to surface. Although the reasons in Bullet Boy is one of many types of reason, the film has explored it nonetheless.At the Question and Answer session after the screening I saw (involving Producers, Directors and Actors), there were 2 complaints that arose.The first was about the film stereotyping black people, I disagree with this and again have to say it is a true reflection of what happens often throughout many communities.There was also a complaint about the lack of hope. The director replied by informing the audience, the film's purpose was not a preaching device to miraculously change gun violence in the streets. Those weren't his words but I am sure you get the basis. I believe that the balance in Ricky, ex-convict who deep down is a nice person who wants to remain positive but faces many struggles, kills the idea of the film stereotyping. Ricky continuously states that the life he is entangled in isn't the life he wants to live, but makes the choice to keep the gun which sooner or later indirectly results in his death. Not only does the death maintain the realism and prevent a fairytale ending offering a false sense of security, it doesn't glamourise Ricky's choice to keep the gun. Although he is seen to be making attempts to break out of the streets cycle and RELUCTANTLY has the gun...he has it nonetheless.As mentioned before, Ricky's mentality juxtaposed with his actions provides a great balance for avoiding stereotypes in addition to an unrealistic ending.Great film.