One of the best films of 2000 was this tale of small-time life in modern
Britain, as powerful as anything Mike Leigh ever made, and only the
second feature film from Shane Meadows. It charts the relationship
between Romeo (Shim) and Gavin (Marshall), two Midlands schoolboys
whose lives are changed when they fall in with a strange, child-like,
disturbed man named Morrell (the extraordinary Considine, in an
unforgettable screen debut). Every character feels fully human -
flawed, but not without redeeming features - and the film seems to
contain every emotion, moving from comedy to pathos to heart-stopping
terror with the fluidity of everyday life.
