Sugarhouse is an uncomfortable watch, with painful, often ugly violence and dialogue that is more often than not shouted. It turns to become, mainly a two-man show with white middle-class, jacket-wearing Steven Mackintosh who ventures into ghetto-land somewhere in decaying urban London to buy back a gun used in a murder and black, crack-addict Ashley Walters.Being far nearer in real life to Mackintosh than Walters (by a far margin!) it wouldn't be right for me, myself to say how realistic the dialogue is, or the scenarios. So, I'm not going to try and pretend to say things like it's 'hip' or 'savvy', but looks and sounds really not very nice.Walters, plus his chums generally give Mackintosh a hard time, over how a privileged a life he has and much angst and verbal ricocheting carries on. When director Gary Love's camera swings back and forth to them, it's an odd duet experience, so chalk and cheese.Andy Serkis has been accused of overacting in Sugarhouse and we certainly get our money's worth from his psychopathic drug-dealer character. We see him at the start, nude, stretching his muscles and revealing his many tattoos. More revealing than is necessary, some critics have said, but it gives us a very clear indication that here we have a shaven-head bully more akin the Hannibal Lecter than Peter Pan.As such, as Hoodwink, he is the colour and propulsion in this film. It would be quite dreary without him and who's to say what is over-the-top? It's of a type of person that thankfully I don't know and hopefully never will. His Irish accent seems pretty good too.The film certainly came under my radar and watching it on BBC2 now, I was surprised that it was made 5 years ago and I'd never heard of it or referred to.

This movie had one of the most brilliant performances I have ever seen by Ashley Walters. Walters gives an amazing portrayal of the conniving and mendacious living that many crack addicts live. Crack is one the most popular and dangerous drugs in society. I think it it is good for people to know the menace that drugs can be to our ill-equipped minds. We were all born with a perfectly insane mind to begin with. Just add crack and BOOM your Walter's character in no time. SPOILER Chippin away in an old broke section of the projects waiting for some dumb punters to show up so that he can lie, cheat, and steal from them. Anything it takes. Even stealing Lahood's gun. Now that is crazy..My mate, SPOILER "LaHood" (Serkis the Berzerkis), went so Richter in his character. He's an animal I tell ya. His little Buddhist prayer can't help him are you kidding. He's off the handle. Well done mate. I am looking forward to many returns from our fine actor who played Gollum's movement and voice. SPOILER Makintosh was pretty damn good as a * as usual. He beats the hell out this stinky * bathroom with a pipe ripped from the wall and scares Mr Crack pretty good. that was pretty nice, yeah. One of my favorite scenes was where Serkis (Gollum from LOR) is snorting some yea and the Techno was playing, he was rocking out with his * out.. Great * scene there Mate.Then after all of the tension and lots of scenes, two worlds come together and they find out that they are not that different from each other. They both have the ability to love. But somebody has to die.I'll watch it again.

So, so tempting to paraphrase the legendary two-word review of Spinal Tap's "Shark Sandwich" here, but such an arch dismissal does something of a disservice to what could have been a strong, idiosyncratic movie. Anyway, this half-baked bunch of Sh*thouse is actually one of the strongest post-Lock Stock crime capers yet, which is praise so faint that these very words are vanishing from my screen as I type them. Once you put aside the fact that the film's mere existence is thoroughly depressing (at this rate, that bone-chilling term 'post-Lock Stock' is going to outlive influenza) you are free to admire its considerable directorial panache, some large stretches of very strong writing, and, most graciously, the way that it goes out of its way to discern itself from its infantile genre brethren.It is an odd and very stagey three-hand chamber piece, featuring lead characters whose dynamic fundamentally doesn't make any sense. A sketchy, homeless crackhead (Walters, way, way OTT) lures a dead-eyed businessman (the ever tedious Steven Macintosh) to an abandoned warehouse in central London (which, rather helpfully, has running water and electricity) in order to sell him a stolen handgun. A deranged, skin-headed drug dealer (Serkis, in a performance clearly discernible from outer space) enters the mix shortly afterwards, after discovering that the weapon in question is the very same one that had been pinched from his bathroom the night before.After a gripping opening, this very early instant is precisely where logic runs and hurls itself out of the nearest window. This is one of those movies that simply wouldn't exist without its main character's constantly inane and illogical behaviour. The calamitous trio's entire encounter is one gigantic assemblage of excellent reasons for each of them to leave the warehouse and never return, but none of them choose to. The tables are turned frequently but to no dramatic avail; in one scene, Walters plans to shoot Macintosh and run away with his money, and in the next he's cowering, gun in hand, in a toilet cubicle whilst Macintoff struts around on the other side of it cursing noisily. And as for the resilient, smirking bond that suddenly (and I do mean suddenly) forms between them in the finale? I've seen richer and more plausible moments of emotional heft in the Naked Gun flicks. Although large chunks of the dialogue are authentic and peppy, playwright Dominic Leyton often tries to invoke profundity and gravitas via some very silly shortcuts. The most extraordinary example of this involves Walters having a very brief, tearful rant about the intricacies of the British class system, which manages to single-handedly convince our businessmen friend not to buy the gun from him at all. Why? Because guns is bad, blud. Its a scene so misjudged and absurd that you can't help feeling terribly sorry for the actors, who all rather admirably treat the material like Chekov. These characters are all utterly shameless archetypes (Serkis is a volatile psychopath that dotes on his family; Macintosh the privileged white wimp, in over his head; and Walters' brash demeanor masks, quelle surprise, a heart of purest gold) but the whole notion of having actual characters in a film of this type, routine or not, is something of a novelty. So yes, this is basically yet another shallow, stupid mockney slap 'em up. But despite the relentless implausibility of it all, if it had just relinquished the pretentious and simplistic posturing, it'd be easily recommendable to fans of this sort of thing as a lazy Sunday afternoon rental.It is, at least, stylish and occasionally interesting.

best drugs movie since train spotting and best British since lock,stock. hard hitting gritty and shows life in urban Britain as real as it can be. People will watch this and see how the 'other half' live and that although we are a culture that is hard and unforgiving, we can allow for the man not use to the ways we have to live. I identified with Dee, he had nothing and knew that he had nothing. no prospects no money no house no reputation and in that environment thats makes just existing almost imposable and with a habit as well life expectancy will be low. Tom and Dee eventually find their common ground and the fact that no matter 'rich man' or crack head a broken heart and a gun is a dangerous combination. loved it great film