It's a bit difficult to really place this movie within an audience because of the way it was released. Yes, it seemed to have been aimed at teenagers, but most of them would not have been able to see it (in the cinemas at least) cos it was released with an 18 certificate on both the big screen and video (it has only recently been downgraded to a 15 for DVD). It also had such a limited release that it has been virtually ignored since so finding it would not have been that easy.
Admittedly the film has dated but it was a very good depiction of the early 1990s when joyriding and ramraiding were nightly news subjects. The characters were stupid and shallow because they were supposed to be. Watch or listen to documentaries on joyriding and you will hear, for real, the stupidity and shallowness of the idiots who used to joyride round council estates like Blackbird Leys. There was a fair bit of realism beneath the gloss.
Shopping was very much a British film dealing with a British phenomena. It was badly hampered by a tiny budget (all the police cars were clapped out 10 year old Ford Sierras and the burning Porsche was nothing more than a mock up of the dashboard) but it did it's best with what it had. However, the acting was solid (especially so in the case of Frazer James and Sean Pertwee) but so many of the actors were tv performers with little experience of film acting. Ironically Jude Law had the biggest part but, for me, made the smallest impact.
In the end, it was a first film and a good attempt at that. The music was superb, and the highlight for me. For all the shallowness of the characters, Anderson didn't glamourise the world he depicted. There was a nihilism and destructiveness to Billy's character that was so common among many British teenagers on council estates at that time. Bored? Let's steal a Cosworth and set it on fire. Run over an innocent person? They shouldn't have got in the way. As Monkey said in the film when visiting a shrine to some dead joyriders:
"Ford Granada, latest model. The wankers drove it straight into a wall. Waste of a *beep* good car".
No regret over death, only over the destruction of a car. The ugliness of the characters and their deaths (except Billy)at the end of the film pointed to an attempt at a moral. JOYRIDING KILLS!!! Maybe that's why it's difficult to pinpoint the audience Anderson was aiming at. He styled a film that obviously was aimed at teenagers but he was deliberately criticising their world and their morality.
'Culture, sophistication, a little bit more than an 'ot dog' You said it Bob!
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TechnoTom
14 years ago
Well put integrale. It's more about the tragedy of Billy hating himself and his life rather than an action film. The cars, Tommy, the ram-raiding, it's a backdrop to the story about an angry young man who doesn't want to love, hates himself and wants to wreck everything.
As you mention, pretty accurate view of *beep* estates and unloved people who grow up in them.
Joy. Such a happy ending too.
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