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.

terrible plot, shocking acting made worse with bad mockney accents, jamie foreman was good but it looks like all the budget went on him! everything about it was really unbelievable, like a bad drama class loads of bad pauses in between lines, bad delivery of lines. Really annoying direction, showing nightclub scenes for too long, seemed like it was trying to pad out the film with slow motion shots of the dance floor, completely boring i had to fast forward loads of bits, and there was no relationships between the characters, and the dialogue was really unbelievable to the DJ.."ill tell you what mate.. bang out a couple of house tunes yeah??" amateur hour! don't bother watching it, total waste of time.

With Jamie Foreman starring I was expecting something along the lines of Layer Cake or the excellent Dead Man Running. However, this is a fairly dramatic and at times a very dark and gritty tale. It follows the story of Bobby a supermarket worker with a debt to the local crime-lord "Dave" played by Jamie Foreman. When Bobby realises what's at stake he has to take matters into his own hands. It seems at times the director is trying to do Mean Streets, but with a bit of action. Well actually there are also drug taking & sex scenes too. However essentially it is a tale of criminal wheeling and dealing, backstabbing, friendship & betrayal. Even without knowing the story in advance, I can say the final act came as a surprise. The picture quality was average and a wooden performance from the supporting lead, but the trance/techno soundtrack suits the era well. This film is certainly not a student film and anyone who claims it to be has no idea what cinema is. The Grind is certainly worth watching.

I was looking forward to watching The Grind. Having been a fan of Jamie Foreman for years, and his fantastic turn in EastEnders over the last 6 months, this film looked interesting.And was it any good? It was pretty good for a low budget film, to be fair. The story of a couple of mates, with one owing money to the other's boss is a familiar line. Martin Scorsese did this with Mean Streets nearly 30 years ago. But it works here in the Hackney setting. Performances range from very good to poor. Stand outs are Foreman and Danny John-Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf) Production values are good - visually it holds well, having gone for the gritty street realism of Nil By Mouth and Fish Tank. You can see the angle the Director had gone for in presenting a urban, street level feel.The problems are fairly easy to point at. The female characters are underused. The Vince character isn't great, it would have been better to have focused solely on the main character Bobby. And some of the dance scenes go on a bit, so if you like trance, that's great, but otherwise...Having said that, the pluses are there. The director has a strong visual sense, the locations are reminders of what many Londoners live through outside of the glare of the media. Jamie Foreman is at his most serious best, in fact his best performance in years. The story and dialogue is good. So it's a bit hit and miss, but worth a watch, even just to see Danny John-Jules and Jamie Foreman in strong performances, and the evocative settings and visuals. And it's a whole lot better than some of the British dross out there.