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Shifty

Shifty (2009)

April. 24,2009
|
6.5
| Thriller

Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer, intent on setting him up for a big fall.

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Artivels
2009/04/24

Undescribable Perfection

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Unlimitedia
2009/04/25

Sick Product of a Sick System

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Pacionsbo
2009/04/26

Absolutely Fantastic

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Brendon Jones
2009/04/27

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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Leofwine_draca
2009/04/28

A dull and lifeless addition to the British gangster cycle. Shifty and his buddy Chris are a couple of dead-eyed deadbeats who deal drugs and spend their days either fighting with friends and family or trying to stay out of trouble. The film that follows is as depressingly grim and predictable as it is uninteresting.One of the recurrent problems with movies like this is that the writer and director is the same person, in this case Eran Creevy. I personally believe that scriptwriting and direction are two very different beasts that require very different skills and talents. Middling efforts in both respects result in middling films. Creevy should choose one role or the other, not attempt both. Invariably these "labour of love" productions smack of self-importance and self-indulgence, as is the case here.It's not all bad, and there are certain things in the film's favour; the camera-work is pretty decent by genre standards, with none of that blighting shaky-cam rubbish, and the pacing is pretty good; SHIFTY keeps you watching, even if it doesn't involve you. But the characterisation is so circumstantial and clichéd that it's impossible to immerse yourself in the world of the characters.Riz Ahmed and Daniel Mays have both contributed some impressive acting in other, better films, but they're lifeless and on autopilot here. I'm not quite sure why Jason Flemyng and Francesca Annis have been cast in supporting roles that could have been played by anyone, unless it's for name value alone. It's not enough. SHIFTY is an instantly forgettable move in a quagmire of similar efforts.

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PippinInOz
2009/04/29

There are lots of things that made this film 'good' in my estimation, most of those things have been discussed by other reviewers already. For example: strong performances, some lovely cinematography etc. But the 'thing' that really struck me about this film was the brave attempt to depict drug dealing and drug use in an unglamorous context. English crime / gangster films had moved into a comic book realm in the late 90s early 00s - courtesy of Guy Richie's thoroughly entertaining 'Lock Stock....' - I have no problems with that little genre. However - this was always a white middle class guy's romantic comic book version of drug deals and guns. This is not a criticism, as I say, the films he makes are good fun and entertaining. They are what they are. So it is all the more wonderful to see a film like this one. The Respectable working class milieu, not everyone lives in a decrepit London (or Manchester or Liverpool) decaying block of flats with graffiti and p**s stains on the wall for example. The 's**t - shire' - nothing place. Not quite street cred enough to be 'cool' - the camera pans over rows of little houses with bins out the front, small gardens, indistinct small scale warehouses, the underpass, the quiet suburban streets. This is not London, this is not the country, this is the nowhere's ville where a larger percentage of 'us' actually come from than we care to admit at times. The kitchen sink averageness of the cocaine addicted building site worker, the quietly observed sadness of the crack smoking old lady in her familiar looking flat, framed photograph of a daughter, grand daughter on the mantle. It is the quietness of this film that really got to me, which made the final scenes all the more horrific and powerful. It made me think of a Billy Bragg lyric 'Don't go reminding me again of how brittle bone is.' No rock n rollers, no sharply dressed fellas on the make. Just people, who look like people at the local shopping centre you walk past everyday. While it is not perfect, I eagerly await the director's next film. Hats off to all the actors involved as well - not a weak link anywhere. Mr. Mays: you were sensational! If you want to see a film that is not a post modern comic book version of life (and again, these films have their appeal for me at times) give this one a go.

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thebogofeternalstench
2009/04/30

I've noticed this growing trend with a lot of British gangster and drama films that claim to be 'gritty and realistic' but are no where near it.Shifty suffers from the same flaws. I'm sorry, but even the lower class of British society doesn't say 'yeh bruv' or 'mug' etc every other sentence, its so stereotypical and bloody over done.It seems also, that Daniel Mays is a one dimensional 'actor', but really, he can't act to save his life. He has one of the most irritating faces to look at and permanently looks retarded. To me, he sounds EXACTLY like Danny Dyer, another bloke who thinks he can act. How he got a part in anything to do with Mike Leigh is beyond me.Riz Ahmed however seems like a very capable actor but was given a completely $hit script to work with.The whole film is just so uninteresting. I thought there would be some action and meaning to the story, but at end its like the viewer is supposed to clap their hands at Shifty's clever little stints he did to get out of his spot of bother.Also, if he made 3 grand a week being a drug dealer, would he really be living in that $hitty flat/house with his older, old fashioned brother? I doubt it.Another disappointing, clichéd British film.

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Ali Catterall
2009/05/01

Shifty is being hailed in some quarters as an early contender for best British film of 2009 - a double-edged blessing for any debut, which can rarely hope to live up to the hype, however well intentioned. Shifty isn't the second coming, the one true saviour of UK independent cinema. But it's a very decent little crime thriller, with a lot of heart, that deserves more than a couple of weeks at the repertory before being marooned on DVD.Chris (Daniel Mays) returns from Manchester to the (fictional) outer London suburb of Dudlowe after four years in white-collared exile. To his surprise, he discovers his old school mate Shifty (Riz Ahmed), the "smart kid in class, four A-levels", has since transformed from a part-time weed merchant into a full blown crack dealer.Over the next 24 hours, the country mouse accompanies the town mouse on his rounds, supplying everyone from middle-class hippies to dead eyed kids, while being stalked by an increasingly agitated Trevor (Jay Simpson), a broken family man prepared to take his next fix by any means necessary. (Shifty must be selling some uncommonly good gear.) Meanwhile his brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra) is about to kick him out of his house, and double-crossing supplier Glen (Jason Flemyng) is setting him up for a fall. Can Chris convince Shifty to abandon his life at the crack face before he comes a cropper? 'Shifty' sounds like an ITV comedy drama from the late 1960s or early 1970s, no doubt starring Hywel Bennett or Adam Faith as its eponymous lovable rogue; up to no good, but more victim than predator - and that's pretty much the case here. An ocean away from The Wire's corner boys, Baltimore's tooled-up foot soldiers marinated in murder, Shifty's scrappy pushers embody a familiar kind of hapless Englishness; the sort who might shut up shop for a day, owing to the wrong kind of snow on the road. Yet for all its lively banter ("I can't believe you just sold crack to Miss Marple and struck a deal with Blazin' Squad") the film is no quirky apologia for crime. This is the pedestrian reality of drug abuse: people hurting themselves in small rooms.All the cast are terrific, playing real three-dimensional characters, but actor-musician Riz Ahmed is standout as the titular live wire, utterly nailing the dealer's temporal mindset. He might look as if he's physically occupying a scene, but he's not really there at all - his eyes tell us he's already on the next page, a parasitic tick, eternally leaping from host to host.Writer-director Eran Creevy drew his inspiration from a former school friend, an A-grade pupil who discovered he could make more money in the real world by dealing drugs. Not for Shifty being "stuck in a warehouse, knocking out dodgy Fruit Of The Loom". Had things worked out differently, we can easily imagine him popping up on 'The Apprentice', back-chatting Sir Alan.Creevy eschews the woozy, art-house ambiance of Duane Hopkins' Better Things - another portrait of a drug-decimated community - for naturalistic dialogue and performances within carefully framed and composed shots; properly cinematic, grown-up direction. Though we never get the impression we're watching a wildly original cinematic voice, it's refreshing to encounter a film featuring gritty, 'urban' subject matter that hasn't been shot with a hyperventilating DV camera.This relative stillness and subtlety gives rise to moments of exceptional power. During one scene, Shifty delivers to posh, pensionable hippie Valerie (Francesca Annis), in a grimy council flat littered with Moroccan tat and dead, stiff cats. It is safe to assume this is a long way from where she imagined she was going to end up. After everybody has had a nice cup of tea, Chris and Shifty hunch embarrassedly on the opposite sofa in silence, while Valerie gratefully sucks on the pipe, gently collapsing back into her chair, as muffled, moronic techno from the flat upstairs leaks through the ceiling into the room.Such damn fine film-making reflects well on Shifty's sponsor, the Microwave project, which gives aspiring UK indie filmmakers a chance, a mentor, and some money to help realise their dreams. The catch: they have to turn their movie around in just 18 days on a budget of £100,000. While everyone, from caterers to star actors are paid the same, inducing a more democratic vibe on set. Heathrow horror Mum & Dad, released on Boxing Day 2008, was the first film to be made under the scheme. Shifty is the second. There are eight more to come.

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