Wild Bill - Blu-ray Review

'The smart scripting and open, under-played, performance by Creed-Miles leads your empathy to a warm, if deeply flawed, father-son bonding session.'

In the background of Wild Bill lurks an important character. The deeply annoying, petty, slightly-unhinged Pill (Iwan Rheon), hints at the film this could have been, something much less of substance, encouraging you to empathise with a group of barely redeemed hoodlums. The film instead encourages you to laugh at Pill and his ilk. Wild Bill isn't here to glory in the gangsters.

Instead, it's a family drama, which happens to be set in and around that world. Bill (Charlie Creed-Miles), formerly of a very nefarious parish, returns to find his children (Will Poulter and Sammy Williams), abandoned by their mother, living alone in his flat. One is in deep with the gangsters, the other hates him and has lady trouble (with a subtly funny, lively, Charlotte Spencer). In another film, the film where Pill is the 'hero', that would be the last we see of the kids.

Instead, first time writer/director Dexter Fletcher pushes the focus on to Bill and his relationship with his children. The smart scripting and open, under-played, performance by Creed-Miles leads your empathy to a warm, if deeply flawed, father-son bonding session. The look on Bill's face when he thinks he has done the right thing by hiring prostitute Roxy (Liz White) for Dean's (Poulter) sixteenth birthday is a picture in microcosm of his misguided attempts to reconnect with the kids.

The emotional finale, which shows both a genuine change in characters and an inevitably honest stasis, shows how well Fletcher has done throughout. Unlike the fake 'respect' most gangster films encourage, here you really care what happens to Bill, Dean and Jimmy (Williams). The director's second film, Provenance, set for 2013, should already be high on your radar.

Wild Bill is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK from today.