The Grind

2012 "East End Loan... Dead End Debt"
2.9| 1h25m| en
Details

The Grind is a modern urban drama, set in world of sex, drug dealers, dance nightclubs and loan sharks. Vince is the nightclub manager of The Grind in Hackney, East London and having fought his way to a decent living and respectable lifestyle he is determined to settle down and take life easier. Upon meeting and starting a relationship with Nancy, Vinces dream of running a casino for his Boss and getting married looks set. Bobby, Vinces best friend from school, is released from prison and their friendship soon falls apart, Bobbys addiction to cocaine and gambling spirals out of control and he now owes a huge amount of money to Vinces boss, Dave ; owner of The Grind and an East End loan shark. Vince's life takes a dramatic turn for the worse. Loyalties are tested and friendships are pushed to their limits.

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Reviews

KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
GUENOT PHILIPPE Of course this is a lousy picture, as are most of recent crime films from UK, all from the Guy Ritchie's fashion. Lousy, lousy and lousier one than the other. But this one is far better if you consider the story and the characters, especially the ending which is totally unpredictable and in the pure film noir tradition. very brutal and shocking. Yes, I love this film especially for its ending that saves the whole thing. But besides this, the directing is absolutely awful with such lenghts, such as in the night club when you see people dancing in the dark long, long minutes long. I don't know if the director wanted to copy the DEER HUNTER mariage sequence between Meryl Streep and John Cazale - if my memory is good - but this night club sequence is totally useless. But to summarize, this little film noir is very weird in the fact that it is awful, lousy and very good in the same time.
Steve Archer OK first up. This film is clearly REALLY LOW BUDGET and I see from the credits of the director it's his first film and was made from a previous short film he made some years before. So going from a short to a feature is clearly a MASSIVE step up and over all I felt he did a pretty good job all being considered. Clearly having a bigger budget would have helped this film as they could have added more action, bigger named actors and better locations/extras, sound track and stunts etc. The DP has done a great job on this as it really helped the film feel edgy, dirty and the low budget feel really helped make it feel like a nasty bleak world! We are all going to Hoxton/Dalston darling!" this film ain't! :-) I personally thought the casting of Jamie Foreman was a master stroke as His dad used to be a real Hackney gangster and was in fact a hit man for the Krays for some years and KILLED A FAIR FEW PEOPLE FOR THEM. Foreman therefore lent the film a greater feel of realism than going for just another east end bad guy boss like other crime films have done. It was also a interesting part for Danny John Jules and bar his deleted extras scene in "Lock Stock" I haven't really seen him play that kind of role before or anything of that kind of low budget nature so I guess he and Foreman must have really seen something different in the realness of the script like for example Bobbie owing Foreman only £10k rather than say £250k which is more of a movie sum of money to kill someone over. In fact the fact he beat him to death himself for such a small sum of money was really shocking for me but again set up this kind of harsh and bleak, true London world. The movie does have it's flaws though it has to be said! There are far too many roles in the film (the cast seems pretty massive), there are clearly not enough extras in the night club which either means it was a real dive of a club or the film just didn't have enough money to really fill out the club scenes properly as they must have all cost money. A bit of both I would have thought. The trance music score wasn't really to my tast either but then I'm no trance fan so that's hard to judge the movie down for that one. Also the club scenes should have been edited a bit more as they did go on a bit. All in all I felt the director did a very good job on his first movie with room for improvement moving forward for future films. The Grind was a very gritty, real and hard depiction of a quickly changing part of the east end. This movie deserves it's place in the collection of gritty realistic low budget crime films. A pretty good job!
ben hollobone A gangster movie set on the streets of London is nothing new. The story is interesting and the rave culture come through well and it's nice to see a new film maker on the scene doing a different take on the gangster genre. The film revolves around Bobby and his debts to the local crime lord Dave. The performances are weak in places and could have done with some stronger female characters being developed such as Zoe Tapper has a great future, but clearly it was a guns and geezers movie with trance music and a heist thrown in. It's definitely not a student film and it's good to see the film doing so well in the charts and doing a lot better than the crapline of films that are out there! 8 out of 10 because of the brave ending and being so high in the charts
Charlie123987 I hadn't actually heard of this movie until I stumbled upon it searching for Jamie Foreman from EastEnders. I had no expectations for it at all as I had not heard of the supporting cast members apart from Danny-John Jules who plays the "Cat" from Red Dwarf! I have to say that the ending was an interesting choice that I was not expecting as I was really rooting for both Bobby & Vince. The storyline is good, a slightly different take on the gangster genre. We actually see the character development of the main characters, with two different visual styles which I found really cool. The acting was mostly good all round, a couple of the female characters were slightly weak in moments but not bad. I wish Zoe Tapper was in a bit more. It's very urban & gritty which is quite popular at the moment. The Grind moves along at a good pace and the slow bits are there to allow the audience to breathe & let the characters develop which is a bonus. I'd rate The Grind as a realistic portrayal of urban life & the nightclub world. There are issues in terms of technical quality, but being low budget it was a good solid effort all round!