channel 4 review of RWTN or POS

The following is from British TV Channel 4

Since the unprecedented success of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, there has been a third burgeoning genre - the London crime caper, often dressed up in sociologists' tweeds (see Kidulthood or the superior Bullet Boy), and whose cast has almost certainly served time in 'Casualty', 'EastEnders' and 'The Bill' (and in Simon Webbe, an ex-member of boy band Blue).

Rollin' With The Nines belongs squarely in this latter camp, but mostly dispenses with issues-led subplots in favour of a shoddy gansta caper revolving around coke deals and London's grime music scene. The film actually looks like an extended promo for Dizzee Rascal, who cameos, and does in fact climax with the very same, featuring more mature cast members, like Billy Murray, gyrating apologetically like disco dads.

Murray and Stone previously shared screen time in Hell To Pay, Dave Courtney's mind-boggling expose of the contemporary South London gangster scene which Rollin' superficially resembles, and they virtually reprise their roles here, as a drug lord and a bent cop respectively. It's with no small measure of predictability then, that Vas Blackwood and an unhappy-looking Jason Flemyng pop up in Rollin' too - a sop to its Lock, Stock heritage. Even Flemyng's underwritten police chief is just called Captain Flemyng - an unforgivable lack of imagination taking into account the other signposted names on show, like Rage, Karnage, Too Fine and the self-explanatory Temper ("They call me Temper for a reason... I am not a man with whom to f* *k").

There's a reasonably well-executed chase scene through a forest with police helicopters - quite striking in a UK film - Naomi Taylor is pretty good in her debut big screen role as the vengeful innocent-turned-drug-dealer Hope; and the soundtrack is at least credible. But if Rollin' had half the wit or dynamism of even Guy Ritchie's inaugural movie, it would have been a sight more enjoyable than this lazy, often dismally acted affair, calculated to appeal to 15-year-old schoolboys and Sizzla fans.

Ultimately, there's not much difference between this and Summer Holiday. At least, if Cliff Richard and Una Stubbs had had their faces sprayed off by baying yardies.

Verdict
An uninspired and largely disposable addition to the UK gangsta genre, propped up by a decent soundtrack. So true POS = piece Of Sh!t