‘Marching Powder’ Review
Stars: Danny Dyer, Stephanie Leonidas, Calum MacNab, Dean Harrison, Arty Dyer, Philippe Brenninkmeyer, Phillip Ray Tommy | Written and Directed by Nick Love
Danny Dyer reteams with director Nick Love for Marching Powder, a sweary geezer comedy-drama that feels like a throwback (or should that be a dragback?) to the early ’00s. It marks their fifth collaboration – following Goodbye Charlie Bright (2001), The Football Factory (2004), The Business (2005) and Outlaw (2005), as well as Dyer’s return to the big screen after a ten-year absence.
In some ways, Marching Powder could be seen as a sequel to The Football Factory, since Dyer once again plays a coke-snorting (the title is a euphemism for cocaine), c-word-dropping part-time football hooligan. The difference is, well, he’s a lot older this time around, and the film does a decent job of questioning his life choices.
Dyer plays Jack Jones, a 45-year-old geezer who still indulges in coke and football-related violence of a weekend with his three best mates. However, his long-suffering wife Dani (Stephanie Leonidas) is reaching the end of her tether, and when Jack is ordered by a judge (Philippe Brenninkmeyer) to clean up his act and attend marriage guidance sessions, he attempts to turn his life around.
The problem is that Jack is weak-willed, and it doesn’t usually take much in the way of persuasion for him to fall into his old habits (rather like Dyer himself returning to this sort of material after a lengthy absence). It doesn’t help that his wealthy father-in-law (British gangster movie veteran Geoff Bell, APC*) tasks Jack with looking after his troubled brother-in-law Kenny Boy (Calum MacNab), whose preferred pastime is beating up drug dealers and stealing their stash.
Love has a proven affinity for this kind of material and he gives the whole thing a propulsive energy, bolstered by having Dyer’s character repeatedly break the fourth wall and address the audience. He also includes a number of pleasingly inventive touches, most notably an entertaining animated sequence at the beginning that introduces the characters and delivers all the necessary backstory.
However, when it comes to tone, the direction is slightly less successful, in part because Marching Powder is constantly trying to be two things at once, or rather, it’s continually attempting to distance itself from the cocaine-fuelled violence, but keeps being drawn back in. Moreover, it’s never entirely clear whether the film is squarely aimed at fans of The Football Factory (who are, presumably, very much pro-swearing and drug-fuelled violence) or sincerely attempting to repudiate that lifestyle. Arguably, the film ends up hedging its bets in that regard, but it doesn’t manage to strike the balance as well as it could have done.
As for the performances, Dyer and Leonidas are both terrific. In fact, they have genuine chemistry together – their relationship feels entirely believable, which makes the romantic comedy element of the movie surprisingly successful. Watch out for the film’s comic highlight, involving a parody of a rightfully derided scene in a popular British romcom.
Truth be told, the romcom element of Marching Powder is much more engaging than all the stuff with Kenny Boy, and perhaps that’s the point, since it makes the audience understand that the relationship is worth fighting for. At any rate, it’s pitched perfectly, and Leonidas has a good speech about why she has stayed with Jack all these years that goes some way towards mitigating the fact that she very obviously deserves better.
The film’s other saving grace is that the script is frequently very funny, if deliberately crude and over-the-top. Occasionally, it verges on inspired, especially with a monologue that is effectively a parody of Ewan McGregor’s ‘Choose life’ monologue from Trainspotting.
In short, Marching Powder is an energetic and surprisingly entertaining middle-aged geezer comedy that should prove a hit with its target audience but also has a little bit more to offer than you might expect, both in the romantic comedy side of things and the attempts to grapple with the more unattractive aspects. Go on, my son, and so on.
*** 3/5
Marching Powder is in cinemas now.
