Melbourne International Film Festival: While his focus remains defiantly provincial, it may be time to start considering British filmmaker Shane Meadows on the same terms as his better known countrymen Danny Boyle and Michael Winterbottom. Like them, Meadows is a director who finds his way into unexpected environments through his protagonists and has no fear of embracing a new genre. Having started as a modern working class realist – Ken Loach with a Happy Mondays bootleg collection – he’s grown increasingly unpredictable.
With hindsight the film that appeared to mark a dead end to his career, 2004’s coruscating vigilante revenge drama Dead Man’s Shoes, now appears to be a starting point. From that violent, reductive fantasy Meadows has grown bolder. He reached into his childhood for the resonant skinhead coming of age tale This is England in 2006, and now has knocked up a vigorous, pungently authentic comedy in the form of Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee, a character study freeloading off a rock & roll mockumentary.
Not surprisingly, the picture is from an offshoot of Warp Films, the emerging production house that was founded in the wake of Warp Records becoming the most influential British electronic label of the 1990s. The idea was to put together a feature in five days, a timeline that Meadows and his chief collaborator, Paddy Considine, have cannily applied to the lead-up to a massive outdoor concert. In the midst of the preparation for 50,000 people to see Arctic Monkeys at Manchester’s Old Trafford cricket ground, the pair has unleashed big mouthed rock roadie Le Donk (Considine) and his protégé, rotund rapper Scor-zay-zee.
Reality is liberally intruded upon. Scor-zay-zee – real name Dean Palinczuk – is a genuine rapper with a series of acclaimed releases, and probably not as dense as he is shown here, and the pair are being followed around by Meadows, a genial if fast talking presence behind the camera, for a documentary. At times you see what Meadows is shooting, as his two leads improvise off an outline and rope in whoever may be walking past, at other points a second crew has the director in the shot as he reflects on his subjects or spars with them.
The film’s unknown Scor-zay-zee is something of a talent, so naturally Le Donk never shuts up. Considine, who was gunned down in The Bourne Ultimatum and killed in a riot during Cinderella Man, is a revelation here as the big mouthed braggart who can’t see the obvious. With long hair and loose-limbed gait he looks younger than usual, and decidedly more quick-witted. Le Donk is a successor to David Brent of The Office, misreading each situation to disastrous effect. In an early scene he visits his ex-girlfriend (Olivia Colman), who is about to give birth to his child, and manages to put his foot in everything except his unstoppable mouth.
Given the improvised origins and the minute production window, the movie can be somewhat hit and miss, but Considine has such a grip on the character that you never know when he might start on a classic riff – sitting in the van late at night with his protégé he talks about a sexual situation with his former girlfriend where he displayed unexpected endurance. 'I thought of Mike Tyson," he suddenly offers by way of explanation.
It helps that Palinczuk plays his alter ego with a sly wit, wandering around with a keyboard he can’t plug in and unintentionally impressing Arctic Monkeys (or 'Arctical Monkeys" as Le Donk keeps calling them) so that they give him a guest slot on their bill. The rapper knows how to be funny without needing a punchline to sell. Having spent years covering the music industry, I can sadly vouch for Le Donk’s ability to talk authentically bollocks non-stop and put Scor-zay-zee – who he variously describes as a Womble and a 'big fookin’ lump" – on the spot.
He’s so authentic that you can’t begrudge Meadows and Considine giving the character a fairytale ending, with the birth of his child and a massive gig giving him a redemptive finale. He’s comically tortured you enough as it is.
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