Wild Bill [DVD]

Wild Bill is the directorial debut of Dexter Fletcher (Soap from Lock, Stock) featuring Charlie Creed-Miles (Harry Brown) as Bill. Reformed, he returns home to his flat in a council tower-block after 8 years inside; Bill finds his 15 year-old & 11 year-old sons Dean (Will Poulter - Son Of Rambow) and Jimmy (Sammy Williams) alone. Abandoned by their mother who has fled to Spain with her lover, the boys have been looking after themselves for a while. Bill, initially keen to leave them to it, is dragged into looking after them by social-services and the details of his parole. But when 'old-friends' rear their head and implicate Jimmy, will Bill have to revert back to his Wild self to extricate his newly-found family from this mess?

A quality film from top-to-bottom; this is a genuinely warming film about family & the role a father plays to his children. We see the metaphoric & literal change in Bill as he starts providing for & defending his family despite having never known it himself. All of the cast provide excellent performances, especially the kids who have such a large percentage of screen-time and all of the villains are played by recognisable characters from the UK cinema scene (notably Neil Maskell from Football Factory). What follows is a touching tale of the interaction between a dysfunctional family & gangsters, with both halves of the plot providing propulsion for the other as the narrative oscillates back & forth - brilliant direction. This is what makes Wild Bill such a pleasure to watch for the 1hr34m duration.

Whilst this story might not be anything ground-breaking; the telling of it is impeccable. When this is teamed up with fantastic performances from the entire cast (bit-parters included) and a brilliant soundtrack (the musical timing is brilliant - the scene where Bill enters the old pub and the soundtrack stops dead is perfect) you have yourself one solid film. Highly recommended for the best British council-estate drama since Harry Brown but with a lot more heart & soul than your average gritty film.

The film is outstanding. Charlie Creed-Miles plays an ex-con trying to establish a relationship with his two sons. Will Poulter is his eldest at sixteen who is reluctant to form any bond. He is trying to go straight and provide for his new family. Of course it doesn't go to plan. Some of the scenes are very funny especially the end fight scene were we find out why he is called Wild Bill, this had me howling. There are solid performances by all the cast especially the two mentioned and also excellent cameo's from Andy Serkis and Mark Warren.

By far the best film of 2012.

This film is absolutely superb! I can't believe no one has seen this, just typical that hollywood rubbish makes billions whilst proper decent well acted films like 'wildbill' go unnoticed.This is really well acted,well cast, funny ,whilst also still being realistic and gritty. This also boasts a superb cast old and new , a who's who of british talent.People have to start supporting british cinema,the likes of this and 'the veteran''piggy''best laid plans' and the superb 'tyrannosaur' all of these are worth a watch but went under the radar.Britain is back lets start supporting these great films!!!