Danny Dyer and Nick Love reunite for Marching Powder, a new film that has a few buttons it wants to press. Here’s our review.
I suspect that the people reading this sort-of review are not the people who are actually going to watch Marching Powder. Instead, I’m aware that traps have been laid in the film so that it can push back against woke, out-of-touch film reviewers, and be a film for the people, not for those who want to write about it.
Instead, we’re left with those involved with the making of the movie (a hello to Nick and Danny if you’re out there), those involved with the promotion and distribution of it, and those with some degree of morbid curiosity. In lieu of Nuts and Zoo magazines no longer being around to bestow their inevitable five stars on Marching Powder, let’s get down to it.
In terms of a statement of intent, writer/director Nick Love sets out his stall in an animated opening, that comfortably delivers on the movie’s trailer. It is a world where nether regions are frequently mentioned, where Ginsters pasties are consumed, and where a woman must give up her dream of art college to instead get on with the laundry.
It’s such an obvious baiting setup that I was curious if Love was going to pull the rug a little. To a degree he does, but not before a lot of powder goes up an assortment of noses.
The heart of the story is Danny Dyer as Jack Jones. Dyer’s a terrific screen presence, here as a 45-year old man who loves nothing more than a few beverages, one or two substances, and some conversations about not ringing doorbells. Several times we’re told that he likes to smash back doors in, and I must admit, I felt his local B&Q must be doing a roaring trade.
His marriage to Stephanie Leonidas’ Dani isn’t in a good place though, and one football scrap later, he’s up before a judge facing a custodial sentence. The judge offers him six weeks to sort his life out, get a job, go to couples counselling and basically get himself together. Our story begins.
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Not just that: it’s when the film shifts into its second act it threatens to deepen. Love’s script drops in a mention of bipolarism –not as a punchline – and there’s a loneliness that comes through Dyer’s character. He’s a good enough actor to do something with it, when he’s not punching someone, drinking pear juice and looking after his sort-of-brother-in-law, Kenny.
But it’s the central relationship that’s the real interest here. Put aside the one-liners about Harvey Weinstein, Andrew Tate, women attracted to other women who happen to live in Ipswich, and whether nuns purchase products from Ann Summers, and the two lead humans do shine through. In fact, I think Leonidas is really good here, and there’s a sequence towards the end of the movie – no spoilers – where the couple communicate through a window that I thought was really effective.
Bubbling underneath there’s the story of a damaged man, who damages those around him – not least his potty-mouthed son – clinging on to his craving for a fight at the football, and his collection of addictions. In fact, the final act of the film – I’m treading carefully – does suggest that’s what Love was actually looking to explore. Then there’s a final shot that made me doubt it all again.
There were, in the screening I attended, eight men and one woman watching Marching Powder, and I’d suggest that’s the target demographic. One got up and walked out after ten minutes, then came back in, and then walked out again. The rest stayed until the end, and then quietly left.
But I sat there and read the list of credits, the bunch of people who dedicated their graft to a film that’s easy for people on my side of the fence to dismiss, but who clearly put in a shift. And I recognise that the parts of the film I bristled at, others are going to love.
This review is, thus, useless. I didn’t like Marching Powder, but I was never supposed to. I did, however, see in it significant evidence of something quite charming in the midst of it. This isn’t a hack job, I thus concluded. It’s just really not very nice.
Marching Powder is in UK cinemas now.
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