Leofwine_draca Coming across like a low-budget, British, and younger variant on PULP FICTION, KIDULTHOOD is a film that skilfully weaves a number of sub-plots involving different characters together, all set over a short time frame of just 24 hours. It's an astonishing film and one that isn't for the faint of heart. Forget the nostalgic London seen in the likes of NOTTING HILL; instead experience a world of casual violence, casual sex, and casual drugs, where explicit sexual situations, explicit language, and explicit violence are present in spades. What makes this film so affecting is its realism. It's filmed on real locations with a gritty look, and the whole cast are believable in their roles. Noel Clarke, the writer, is in his early 30s and yet I never would have guessed it; he plays a sixth-former here and he's utterly, scarily convincing. In the lead role, Aml Ameen is fantastic, creating a believable boy torn between good and evil, the latter personified in Uncle Curtis, one of the absolute hands-down most frightening people I've seen in a film.The acting's excellent throughout, aside from the occasionally irritating Red Madrell as the female lead; director Menhaj Huda does some fantastic work with the budget, including great hand-held camera shots, and the occasional spurts of bloody violence (the Stanley knife bit, for instance) are totally shocking. What I loved most was how the story weaves around tragic events but does manage to have some hope in it, so it's not a totally depressing experience. Things culminate in a set-piece climax in which all of the simmering violence in the film suddenly explodes, and it doesn't disappoint. With humour, romance, thrills, and plenty of spills, KIDULTHOOD is a great little movie and one the British can be proud of, even if it does make for uncomfortable viewing.

Michael J Davies In my opinion one of the best British films ever made. My top two British films may be controversial to most "The Hole" and "Kidulthood".Noel Clarke has created a gritty a most importantly REAL representation of what growing up in the UK is like at the moment. I was 16 when this film was released, making me around the same age as the characters. Perhaps I can relate more to this film having seen two of my friends stabbed, neither killed, and many violent actions on the streets of my estate. I do feel though, that with Clarke's script comes a hard hitting and powerful movie about teenagers in the UK trying to fit in and avoid confrontation which, unfortunately comes due to everybody trying to fit in and be top dog.If anyone from the older generation wonders what it's actually like growing up in Britain today, I can't recommend this film highly enough.

micky_st this is a great movie and powerfully captures every aspect on the harsh territory of the area and people that are changed by it i know this was based in London but it happens everywhere and just seems to expand as years go past kids change though experience that are normally from abuse or bullying which make them pretty much the same and so on it just how it is i grew up in the western part of Sydney (western suburbs) and it was way worse there don't wanna go into the details but great movie a much watch..... ............ ......... .................... ........ ........ ................. ........... ............... ............................................. ....................... .............................................. ...................... ............................................. ............ ............. ...........................................

annevejb Spoilers as this comment looks at my understanding of social lepers in England. This is a story about school kids who live on the borders of London gangland. The first ten minutes I wanted to switch off, it felt sick, but it gradually got practical to watch. Is this really England? * In the eighties, a right wing Conservative time in England and a social cleansing, the EEC decided to give away some of its surplus foodstuffs, cheese, to those on what some call welfare. A magasine article about it did not show any pictures related to dairy farming subsidies but there was a picture of a huge pile of surplus tomatoes. Being long term unemployed, unemployable really, I did qualify to obtain one free package of cheese, but several people who knew me actually gave me a few packets more. It was not many months later that I started wearing a bra, difficult to obtain given my low income and fears re purchasing those in a shop. I am now certain that my bra will have shown under my shirt and it was not many months later that the social restrictions on me, what I was able to do, became even more restricted. I now assume that was politicians playing some rather naughty games to try to make the unemployable employable, just a guess. Does this relate to Kidulthood? * Around 1997 and a change in government and the normally socialist Labour waving a pink flag. As a social outcast it felt like right wing feminism and related social cleansing. I was soon feeling excluded from purchasing newspapers so there is a lot that I do not know. I do know that I started to wear tight trousers, my male-ish bulge needed to be either on display or better hidden. I was soon wearing a kilt outdoors and considering myself as a male to female, though my femaleness was a wrecked parody. I noticed male fashion swap over to T shirts, or shirts outside of the trousers, not many appeared to feel safe about wearing a proper frock. Most 'males' appeared to be affected. I also noticed some 'males' with a very large bosom, as if they had been subject to breast specific female hormones that did not give a female look elsewhere. I felt as if I had been given a choice of my breast size, one evening when there was just me, alone, in my flat, that I had reacted out of timidity. I grew up respecting female ways and considered female as better that male due to an idealised image of nurturing ways. Here I was given clear examples of the nurturing of the pink flag, it can feel as if the female world has said goodbye to most all that is worthwhile about female. Does this relate to Kidulthood? * I did try to read The Female Eunoch, way back when. I noticed that the author had experienced all males that she had been close to, ever, as being violent at heart. I really consider that author to have been misunderstanding reality in a very damaging way. Later I noticed a lesbian article about a bookshop in what used to be a laundry, it including words about ironing the crotches of trousers. Does this relate to Kidulthood? * So, the government has changed and it feels like stronger pressures on us who do not pass the test. 15th August 2011, two days after I posted my IMDb review of Camp Rock 2 someone had left a copy of the UK newspaper Star in the laundrette. Star is not something that I tended to read before I had gotten excluded. This copy showed murder and mass murder and rioting. Way more violent than say twenty years ago. It is natural for me to consider this as side effects of the actions of those who I think of as the opposition. Modern Herod's attacks against big babies and others who are not considered to pass the test; the Secret Revolution of the mid 1990's and later and its use of local street politics and community organisation to social cleanse. A right wing journalist in Star considered the riots and stuff to be due to The Other Side too, but he blamed Marxist social policies of the previous decades. I had not realised that anyone believed that Marxism had much of a reality anymore, me I tend to think of it as a clone of the Puritan Christian world. Kidadult. For me this is all in line with how I tend to consider the feature. * Star is noted for its pictures of naked females but I only noticed one in this issue and I could not relate to it. To misquote Napoleon Dynamite, it felt like a big lump of lard vaguely shaped in female form. There was also a picture of some people trying to break the world record for the most people washing in a shower at the same time. That felt alien. A crowd of ultra slender bikini females standing under a machine that looked like a parody of a sprinkler. I couldn't relate to the Star soft porn, not a surprise, but on reflection was Star using its expertise in soft porn journalism to give the most serious comment on the mayhem that it was capable of giving? * As far as storytelling goes, I find The Quiet to be more approachable. That does not mean that I consider this story to be a waste of time.