A truly tedious and pointless bit of mockney tripe.I only give it 2 marks because of the 'gritty' camera-work, but thats about its only redeeming feature. Full of the usual "do-what-leave-it ahht" suspects who have been excellent in so many other Brit gangster movies, but sadly in this one, well, they didn't exactly lose the plot because there wasn't one frankly.Add to that the massive suspension of disbelief; bloke robs supermarket with zero attempt to disguise himself. Gangster not only kills a bloke that owes him 'ten fairzan pairnd' (presumably in the hope that he has life insurance I suppose?) but does so with a crowbar in broad daylight.The characters are poorly developed in most cases and their relationships to each other never properly explained. "I owe you, you know that" is never explained, nor is what "do-what" did with the ten grand.All in all not recommended and a poor advert for a genre usually well populated with some quality films. 'Lock Stock' it ain't me old mush!

The urban drama is saturated to bursting point with run of the mill, lazy mockney dramas and The Grind brings absolutely nothing new to the genre. The characterisations are woefully developed and acted; they stumble through what can hardly be considered narrative spewing out lines of dire- logue that amounts to posturing and screaming "fack" at each other. The direction isn't much better. The pacing is all over the shop from overly long shots of club scenes and slow motion walks to pad out the 90mins run time whilst employing bleached out visuals via out of focus shaky cam (presumably for "realism"). Overall though, it's just plain dull and is truly a Grind just to get to the credits.

I saw this at the Apollo cinema and I have to say it was visually very impressive. Very nice grade similar to Heat for the nightclub scenes and reverting back to a desaturated look for the urban scenes.It was especially rewarding to have the writer, producer and director (Rishi Opel) in attendance for the Q&A after the film.The performances were good, the lead was cast right as the debt ridden, out of control, Bobby who's quiet and lonely and the director keeps it real by not giving the audience too much information about Bobby and his past dealings with his best mate Vince. It kept me interested in the character of Bobby and wanting to know more about him.Vince, Bobby's best mate runs the club for Dave (Jamie Foreman) and Vince comes across as the ambitious, loud, thuggish, violent types who wants it all including running a casino for Dave. The performance of Vince was poor and let the film down in some aspects. The casting was just wrong. It was an unusual choice of having the two stories running parallel and this slowed the film down in parts. Perhaps this was the original part of the story and it did come across as intentional. Jamie Foreman plays it straight, as the guy who wants his money and if he doesn't get it, then something is going to happen. His performance is great and keeps the film moving. Danny-John Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf) turns in a good performance as the wheeler dealer mate and surprised me with an unusual role I've not seen him play before. During the Q&A, I found it interesting to hear the experience Rishi Opel had throughout the process of making and completing the film and problems he encountered. It was clear to see that The Grind was his life story and solely his vision. His story was tampered with from the people involved, and problems with dealing with negative people, but all he wanted to do was just make a movie and entertain an audience. His knowledge of the early 90's dance movement showed he had experience in the rave culture and his enthusiasm came across well and was certainly infectious. It was good to hear that he hold no grudges against anyone and that he'll be behind the camera again for his second feature!Overall it was astonishingly impressive to see what an independent, enthusiastic, Writer, Producer & Director can achieve. A really interesting debut!

Brit gangster movies can be enjoyable, but this one was simply too tedious and confusing for me. I really wanted to like it. Closer editing would have condensed the story into a crisper 30 minute presentation. The production team was obviously going for gritty street realism, and it showed. It is truly regrettable that I have to produce ten lines of text for this review to be posted, but here goes. The characters were one-dimensional; "Dave" did not come across with the gravitas one seeks in a cinematic villain; Bobby was not tragically flawed, merely tragic; the soundtrack was even more grating than Dave's tire iron; viewers will struggle to differentiate major, minor, and other characters. Would I be spoiling if I recommended that readers not invest any wealth, interest, emotion, or time into this movie? I give it a 5 because I still can't figure out what happened, and that which did happen might have been good to other viewers. Or maybe not.