Nil by Mouth is proof that actor-turned-director for this piece Gary Oldman has an eye for grotty, grimy cinematography which he knows compliments his idea of raw; down-and-dirty, urban set films. His idea of dark, night-set streets and neo-realist inspired sets that encompass apartment flats, as the sorts of people that inhabit the screen are introduced to us, plunge the viewer into a world of anxiety; danger; near-poverty and a gross sense of unpredictability as we realise Nil by Mouth will not follow conventional narrative formula. Instead, it'll spend a lot of time with pent-up, aggressive males doing whatever it is they do. If there's a reason not to be blown away by Nil by Mouth, and this is linked to why I don't think Gary Oldman has directed much since, then it's because the film is a documentation; a hark-back to times and conditions of old brought into the 1990s. It's a basic re-telling of hostile people living amidst low-level living conditions more than it is a substantial study of anything.
This is not an eerie look into the life and world of a drug addict alá Trainspotting and this is not a study of one man questioning his identity and role within a 'group' further still within society alá The Football Factory, although the look and structure of the film, particularly the opening, will remind you of these examples. I'm not sure what Nil by Mouth is; perhaps a faux 'grab the camera and shoot on street level' urban drama that utilises necessary acting heavy weights to carry it; perhaps a very straight forward and simplistic look at life in a specific place at a specific time as the proverbial bottle of fizzy liquid is shook and shook before opened and just exploding in a fury of anger, activity and mess.
The film is about a collection of individuals living on a less than glamorous London housing estate, while it predominantly covers Ray (Winstone) and his no-nonsense, mess-about mate Mark (Foreman) with supporting turns from a number of others including Oldman's real-life sister Laila Morse, who he gets to swear a lot, (playing Janet) and Valerie (Burke) who's Ray's wife. Oldman peppers the opening twenty minutes, which turns into the opening thirty and then onto the opening forty before quickly becoming an hour; with a number of seemingly random and unconnected incidences. Characters go to a pub; some try to acquire drugs; others go to strip-joints whereas in other scenes, characters target and set up organised attacks on other men whom, in rather a sick 'in joke' on the writer's behalf, step out of a fast-food restaurant named 'Wimpy'.
Ray and Mark drive the early scenes almost entirely on their own. The scenes are accompanied by the sorts of dialogue that land you in the world within a film, creating the illusion you're in the room with them, or that you've seen and heard people exchange words like this before. The things these people talk about are pithy, undemanding and feel improvised in their realism and the effortless delivery on the performer's behalf. We see, or observe, these people through the wary and watchful eyes of Valerie and a young man called Billy (Creed-Miles); we see them as they see them: we are made aware of their presence and what sorts of people they are as they drink with us; dine with us; drive us and occupy our living rooms. But Nil by Mouth is one long, and I think somewhat deliberately, arduous building and building to a certain scene much later on. We are plunged into the fire of the world and these people that inhabit it, but it's a one note tune; setting up the characters and the setting and everyone's relationship to one-other and the setting; but we don't get much else afterwards.
After an hour or so of Mark and Ray and friends standing around talking of things they've been up to lately; swearing a little; smoking and cursing the police whenever a siren revs up in the distance, we get a little tired. Nil by Mouth has no direction bar the scene it gives us involving Ray and Valeire nearer the end. Trainspotting and The Football Factory give us an equally street-set, low level look at a 'group' of people you would never, and I mean never, want to get involved with or interact with. But as it progressed its characters, peppering their journeys with light comic relief, towards an inevitable confrontation with their way of life ("Was it worth it?" in The Football Factory and "Choose life" in Trainspotting); we were interested and engaged with these low-lives as a seemingly random passage of events propelled them through their existences. If Nil by Mouth could be compared to a piece of this ilk at the time, it'd be 1999's Human Traffic; a film that nothing more than documents the lives of specific no-body individuals; the protagonist of which, horrifically, just needed a good sex session to figure everything out. Whilst it isn't as bad as Human Traffic, it's as disappointing.
Surprinsignly and annoyingly, Nil by Mouth goes on a bit more after the 'scene' has occurred. It would've been better if it'd ended after we get the obligatory 'angry male trashes room' scene; a scene that carries no dramatic weight in cinema anymore. The film looses all interest and engagement after 'the scene'; descending into a series of nicey-nicey interactions around which one character is jailed for involvement in drugs giving off a false sense of actual closure. If the film is anything at all, then it's a few would-be neo realistic scenes that are carried by some great dialogue and some two dimensional characters being brought to life by talent that can do better anyway. The rest is somewhat of a chore.
This is not an eerie look into the life and world of a drug addict alá Trainspotting and this is not a study of one man questioning his identity and role within a 'group' further still within society alá The Football Factory, although the look and structure of the film, particularly the opening, will remind you of these examples. I'm not sure what Nil by Mouth is; perhaps a faux 'grab the camera and shoot on street level' urban drama that utilises necessary acting heavy weights to carry it; perhaps a very straight forward and simplistic look at life in a specific place at a specific time as the proverbial bottle of fizzy liquid is shook and shook before opened and just exploding in a fury of anger, activity and mess.
The film is about a collection of individuals living on a less than glamorous London housing estate, while it predominantly covers Ray (Winstone) and his no-nonsense, mess-about mate Mark (Foreman) with supporting turns from a number of others including Oldman's real-life sister Laila Morse, who he gets to swear a lot, (playing Janet) and Valerie (Burke) who's Ray's wife. Oldman peppers the opening twenty minutes, which turns into the opening thirty and then onto the opening forty before quickly becoming an hour; with a number of seemingly random and unconnected incidences. Characters go to a pub; some try to acquire drugs; others go to strip-joints whereas in other scenes, characters target and set up organised attacks on other men whom, in rather a sick 'in joke' on the writer's behalf, step out of a fast-food restaurant named 'Wimpy'.
Ray and Mark drive the early scenes almost entirely on their own. The scenes are accompanied by the sorts of dialogue that land you in the world within a film, creating the illusion you're in the room with them, or that you've seen and heard people exchange words like this before. The things these people talk about are pithy, undemanding and feel improvised in their realism and the effortless delivery on the performer's behalf. We see, or observe, these people through the wary and watchful eyes of Valerie and a young man called Billy (Creed-Miles); we see them as they see them: we are made aware of their presence and what sorts of people they are as they drink with us; dine with us; drive us and occupy our living rooms. But Nil by Mouth is one long, and I think somewhat deliberately, arduous building and building to a certain scene much later on. We are plunged into the fire of the world and these people that inhabit it, but it's a one note tune; setting up the characters and the setting and everyone's relationship to one-other and the setting; but we don't get much else afterwards.
After an hour or so of Mark and Ray and friends standing around talking of things they've been up to lately; swearing a little; smoking and cursing the police whenever a siren revs up in the distance, we get a little tired. Nil by Mouth has no direction bar the scene it gives us involving Ray and Valeire nearer the end. Trainspotting and The Football Factory give us an equally street-set, low level look at a 'group' of people you would never, and I mean never, want to get involved with or interact with. But as it progressed its characters, peppering their journeys with light comic relief, towards an inevitable confrontation with their way of life ("Was it worth it?" in The Football Factory and "Choose life" in Trainspotting); we were interested and engaged with these low-lives as a seemingly random passage of events propelled them through their existences. If Nil by Mouth could be compared to a piece of this ilk at the time, it'd be 1999's Human Traffic; a film that nothing more than documents the lives of specific no-body individuals; the protagonist of which, horrifically, just needed a good sex session to figure everything out. Whilst it isn't as bad as Human Traffic, it's as disappointing.
Surprinsignly and annoyingly, Nil by Mouth goes on a bit more after the 'scene' has occurred. It would've been better if it'd ended after we get the obligatory 'angry male trashes room' scene; a scene that carries no dramatic weight in cinema anymore. The film looses all interest and engagement after 'the scene'; descending into a series of nicey-nicey interactions around which one character is jailed for involvement in drugs giving off a false sense of actual closure. If the film is anything at all, then it's a few would-be neo realistic scenes that are carried by some great dialogue and some two dimensional characters being brought to life by talent that can do better anyway. The rest is somewhat of a chore.