Man and boy

Totally unexpectedly, as I don’t like Brit gangster films particularly — so many sociopaths, so little time — I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved Wild Bill and, for those of you who are slow on the uptake, let me say four times more: I loved, loved, loved, loved it. It may not even be a gangster film proper, although it is certainly being sold as such, with a poster that’s all tattooed fist. This is a shame, as it’s actually a rather delicate and elegant piece of work combining great storytelling, a terrific script, and characters you can seriously care about, and do. It hits all the marks. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. And you’ll love it as many times over as you can accommodate. If you are not very busy, for example, you may even love it 24 times over before lunch, and 17 afterwards.

Directed by Dexter Fletcher (the actor, for whom this is a directorial debut), who also co-wrote it (with Danny King), this is, he has said, a film ‘about a man who is a boy and a boy who is a man’. The man who is a boy is ‘Wild’ Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) who returns to his East End, high-rise council estate after eight years in prison. Yes, it is one of those tower-block movies, but not the fantastically grim sort that makes you want to kill yourself — see Tyrannosaur, Nil by Mouth, Fish Tank, etc. — because it has such warmth and humour. Bill returns to his flat, where he discovers his two sons, 15-year-old Dean (Will Poulter) and 11-year-old Jimmy (Sammy Williams), have been fending for themselves since their mother buggered off to Spain nine months earlier with her new fella.