SHIFTY

UK, 2008

Running Length: 86 minutes

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng, Nitin Ganatra, Jay Simpson

Director: Eran Creevy

Screenplay: Eran Creevy

Cinematography: Ed Wild

Opens 11th February

Widely heralded as the saviour of British independent film making, Eran Creevy’s debut feature is a hard-hitting, emotionally devastating look into the life of a petty crack dealer in the London suburbs. Four years earlier, following the accidental drug death of a girl, Chris fled London. He has settled in Manchester and is quite comfortable there, living a white-collar existence. He returns to London and looks up his best mate, Shifty, who had been dealing weed and took the fall for Chris four years ago.

What follows is a day in the life of the crack dealer as Chris trails around after him, trying to find out why his friend, so brilliant at school, has sunk to such lows. Meanwhile, Shifty’s supplier, Glen, is out to get him, trying to set him up to look bad. And one of Shifty’s clients, Trevor, is desperate to get his hands on some gear, despite having no cash and being kicked out by both his wife and his employer.

There is no glamour to this life and Creevy does an admirable job in capturing the grim squalour. Shifty’s devout brother’s house is an oasis of cleanliness and order into which Shifty brings his business, with devastating consequences. This is a film about the reality of drug taking and drug dealing: sneaky people doing nasty things behind closed doors.

Made for less than $100 000 pounds, this film looks incredible. The actors are uniformly good, especially Riz Ahmed as Shifty. After so many Guy Ritchie imitators trying to capture the dark underbelly of the British drug trade, this film is refreshingly without gunplay. Gritty, realistic and often heart-rendingly horrible, this is a tragic tale of friendship gone awry and a life that may be wasted.