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NIL BY MOUTH (1997)

Written and directed: Gary Oldman

Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles...

Set around the picturesque Elephant and Castle and other near-by South London haunts, Gary Oldman’s debut as writer-director is certainly one of the bleakest films of modern times.

It centres around a group of low-life characters whose lives consist of pubs, booze, dope, smack and violence. Main character Ray is the typical South London geezer to avoid. With his violent mood swings which lead to the brutal battering of his other half, played wonderfully by Kathy Burke. The swearing is constant, and politically correct it is not, but then you can't be if you want to be realistic. It's reminiscent of the sort of thing Mike Lee would do but certainly a lot more daring.

At times I couldn't help laughing out loud in an otherwise stunned into silence auditorium due to having witnessed characters like this in life and seeing their total sad existence being exposed. It's certainly different to anything I've witnessed before and as I left the cinema and stepped into the streets around Elephant and Castle itself, it all seemed very odd indeed.

JOHN MARSHALL
24 December 1997