Everywhere And Nowhere Review

Fitting neither the gritty urban drama mould, nor the tongue-in-cheek one leaves audiences laughing when they’re not meant to be.

Once a film style has been rinsed and wrung out to the point of parody, it takes some courage to attempt another come back. Courage? Or the siren sound of the box office cash register?

The case in question is this gritty British urban thriller modelled on the likes of Kidulthood, Adulthood and their spoofing younger bruva, Anuvahood. With, it would seem, few neighbourhoods left to expose, Kidulthood director Menhaj Huda has now decided to turn his lens Everywhere and Nowhere.

Huda’s film follows the existential crisis of a young British-Asian wannabe DJ who, when asked where he comes from, replies: (dramatic pause) "everywhere and nowhere". Unfortunately, after this, the film doesn’t go on to enlighten its audience with further philosophical insight, but simply indulges the tantrums of a teenage boy.

All Ash (played by James Floyd) dreams of is mixing sick choons in Ibiza, but he is quickly brought back to reality by his iron-fisted father, who makes him work at the family convenience store. Luckily, he has three good mates, a supportive sister, a disjointed script and some crude clichés to help him through his modern-day plight.

The old immerse-yourself-in-a-bath-to-clear-your-head routine is one of many laughable moments in this unabashed pastiche of the point where British drama meets the American Dream. This corny style is helped neither by the fact that Ash is surrounded by people who have a habit of ending each sentence with a contrived moral message, nor that Simon Webb from boy band Blue happens to be his idol.

That said, of the many subplots that orbit poor Ash, there are a couple of quite good ones – a particularly touching one stars Adam Deacon as a second-generation immigrant brought up by his pot-smoking granddad poignantly longing for home. If only Huda had run with this instead of the one with the clear target audience – teenagers who love music and love to hate their parents. Ker-ching!