Critic Reviews

• Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter

  This is an impressively mature and technically assured work.

• Cath Clarke, Time Out

  There are plenty of flaws here, but instinctively 'Ill Manors' feels important - like some British films of the 1980s ('Meantime', 'Scum') that spoke of a generation out of work and out of hope.

• Liam Maguren, Flicks.co.nz

  It's about as flattering to London as 'City of God' was to Brazil.

• Graham Young, Birmingham Post

  On this form, 28-year-old Ben Drew has the world at his rapper's feet.

• Alison Jones, Birmingham Post

  Low budget director Drew has an eye for cityscapes and a finely-tuned feel for the mostly untrained cast.

• Donald Clarke, Irish Times

  ll Manors, largely cast with non-professionals, is, for the most part, an astonishingly impressive exercise in hip neo-realism.

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  Its artistic and social ambitions are never fully achieved.

• Jason Best, Movie Talk

  Ben Drew has made a startling debut as a filmmaker, an ambitious, flawed, furiously impassioned state-of-inner-city-Britain drama that will have half its viewers gawping in shock and the rest nodding in recognition.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  If Ill Manors is heightened real life, it is not full of the usual clichés and has a visual and aural flair you have to admire. Clearly there's much promise here; better may follow.

• Allan Hunter, Daily Express

  Ill Manors is not perfect and can only leave you feeling appalled and depressed about the state of the nation but there are still enough powerful moments, strong performances and film flourishes to make it well worth seeing.

• , Liverpool Echo

  Drew's movie pulls no punches in its depiction of the lengths some people will go to in order to survive on the streets of the capital.

• Christopher Tookey, Daily Mail [UK]

  Ill Manors is poorly made and self-indulgently long at nearly two hours. Its sense of hectoring self-importance is deeply alienating and, frankly, ill-mannered.

• Terry Staunton, Radio Times

  Rapper Ben Drew, otherwise known as Plan B, turns writer/director for this shocking and gritty urban drama that focuses on the criminal underclass in east London.

• Lisa Giles-Keddie, Real.com

  As directorial debuts go, Drew has yet to grow but has wisely chosen a subject matter close to his heart where he can reach out simultaneously with his music and lyrics, like some latter-day poet.

• Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph

  Hard-hitting in all the worst ways, like being repeatedly thumped by a randomly furious street hawker.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  Ill Manors should be cordoned off like an exploding fireworks factory.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  It turns out to be disappointingly and determinedly apolitical, while the lairy characters and situations look increasingly forced, derivative and unconvincing, with a touch of Guy Ritchie.

• Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

  No matter how stylish the film is, the lack of a central plot or an original theme make it difficult to care what happens.

Read all 18 critic reviews