GASSED UP
Vertigo Releasing
Released Friday 9 February
Synopsis: Set at the peak of a crime wave sweeping across London, teenage Ash is trying to earn money to raise his 14-year-old sister and send his mother to rehab when he’s caught up with an organised crimes ring led by a young and charismatic Albanian immigrant. As the crimes escalate from stealing mobile phones on the street to full on jewelery store robberies, Ash must choose between his lavish new lifestyle or the people he loves before his whole world comes crashing down around him.
Cast: Stephen Odubola, Steve Toussaint, Mae Muller
Director: George Amponsah
Cert: 15
FAB UK Review:
Ash (Odubalo) wants to do the right thing. His mother keeps on going AWOL and it’s up to him to take care of his vulnerable little sister. Yet Ash has fallen in with a gang, a gang of moped robbers, and the only way out is to pull off one final heist, even if it’s at the expense of their lives and those around them – it’s really all gassed up.
Set to a very pulsating and infectious rap soundtrack, and a fantastic finale song sung by Mae Muller, who is also in the movie, ‘Gassed Up’ never for once slows down and eventually builds to a finale where you feel your heart pumping and your pulse racing. It’s a film with lots of great action and fantastic star turns by the entire cast. ‘Gassed Up’ is a film that keeps on going faster and faster and faster. Filmed in London, you’ll recognize lots of the locations.
Photos from the London premiere (taken by Tim Baros):
THE IRON CLAW
Lionsgate
Released Friday 9 February
Synopsis: The true story of the Von Erich brothers, who make history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
Cast: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James
Director: Sean Durkin
Cert: 15
FAB UK review:
This movie is as hard hitting as its title suggest. Plus to make it more shocking, it’s taken from a real life story.
The Von Erich family – Fritz (a fantastic Holt McCallany) and his wife Doris (Maura Tierney) – have four children, all boys. Fritz never quite made it as a professional wrestler, so he literally drills his sons (Zac Effron, Harris Dickinson and Jeremy Allen White – all brilliant) down to chase his dream – at all costs. One of the boys don’t quite match Fritz’s expectations – but two of them do, and are played off each other by Fritz – mentally and physically. When one of them wins the world championship, the other sets his sights on the same – to disastrous results. It’s a tale of Tragedy over Triumph, and it’s all real life.
This film will stay with you long after you’ve watched it. It is literally blood sweat and tears. And by the time the it is finished you’ll feel like you’ve been through a fight yourself via a washing machine – it’s that good, and that memorable, and the cast are all excellent, and Effron and Calvin klein underwear model White (and Dickinson) have never been better.
TURNING RED
Walt Disney UK
Released Friday 9 February
Synopsis: A thirteen-year-old girl is torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the changes of adolescence. And as if the challenges were not enough, whenever she gets overly excited she transforms into a giant red panda.
Cast: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
Director: Domee Shi
Cert: PG
Also released this week:
OCCUPIED CITY
Modern Films
Release date: Friday 9 February | Cert: TBC
THE SETTLERS
Mubi
Release date: Friday 9 February | Cert: 15