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A Total Thug Up
UK 2014
produced by Steve Call (executive), Terry Barron Turner (executive) for Wryfi Productions, Steve Call Productions
directed by Steve Call
starring Terry Barron Turner, Wayne Phillips, Mez Galaria, Azz Mohammed, Kuljit Singh, Dean Sills, Steve Call, Chase Peterkin, Jermaine Curtis Liburd, Gavin Russell, John Barrett, Colin Clarke, Dave Belton, Terry "Big T" Turner, Terry Marchant, Roy Morse, John Powell, Rizwan Ali Aryan Khan,Stephen Tailby
written by Terry Barron Turner, Steve Call, music by Marc Hoyland, Steve Call
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Terry Barron Turner and Wayne Phillips
photography by Blackrose Effects |
Pistons (Terry Barron Turner) and Dodgy Danny (Wayne Phillips), two
small-fry gangsters in the employ of crime kingpin Midas King (Gavin
Russell), to scare rival gangster Dogger Banks (Chase Peterkin) into
paying up to their boss and to go find an ancient sword worth a fortune
hidden in the woods. They fail miserably in their first assignment because
Dogger brought a gun to their meeting and they failed to do so, and
ultimately, their cock-up starts a gang war between Dogger and Midas'
gangs ... but at least manage to find the sword, which they have no
intention to bring back to their boss but sell to a local fence (Terry
Marchant). They are not going about this all that competently though, and
Pistons even brings his girlfriend-to-be Priya (Mez Galaria) along for the
ride, even though he knows she's in dire need of money. But what's the
one thing that's really bound to threaten the mission of two incompetent
gangsters? That's right, two even more incompetent gangsters, Anil (Kuljit
Singh) and Rambo (Azz Mohammed), who manage to get pissed on on their
mission, they crash their car for no apparent reason at all, they can't
even handle their antique handgun, and in the end they have to call a
friend (Dean Sills) away from a wedding to get them back on track.
But once they do catch up with Pistons, Danny and Priya, things really get
messy ... A Total Thug Up is a rather hilarious gangster
comedy that does not go the by now tired Tarantino-route of trying to be
hyper-cool, post-modernist and ironically violent but manages to tell an
original story full of hilariously eccentric characters, scenes certainly
not typical for the genre (but all the funnier for that), and it brings
all that across in a somewhat laid back pace suitable for the story at
hand. Now add to this a fine ensemble cast and a light-footed directorial
effort, and you've got a wonderful piece of low budget genre cinema.
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