Based on the book of the same name by Bernard O'Mahoney (author of Essex Boys), Sacha Bennett's 2010 big screen adaptation of Bonded by Blood is set in the England of the mid-nineties and it begins with a powerful opening sequence in which two men make their way into a man's apartment and shoot him dead. This dead man, Darren (Adam Deacon), narrates the picture and fills us in on how and why he ended up this way and through a series of flashbacks that occur throughout the film and not always in chronological order, we learn his story and how it ties in with the other characters in the film.

As Darren narrates rather distantly, we meet two of the crooks he's been hanging around with, Mickey Steele (Vincent Regan) and Jack Whomes (Dave Legeno) who get involved with some business dealings made up of another group of guys - Pat Tate (Tamer Hassan), Tony Tucker (Terry Stone), and Craig Rolfe (Neil Maskel). Of course, when talking about gangsters, business dealings rarely go well and this time is no exception, particularly as it involves trafficking illegal narcotics, which leads to a few back stabbings, some betrayal, a good bit of violence, some death, and enough profanity to make Deadwood's Al Swearengen blush.

Profane almost to the point of parody, the profanity in this movie is laid on so thick that after about fifteen minutes or so it loses all effect and you simply become immune to it. Whether this helps the story or not is probably pretty debatable - there certainly are people who do speak like this in real life and you could probably assert that it gives the seedy characters that populate the film an earthiness. Since the characters aren't all that likeable in the first place, however, this may not be a good thing. Those expecting clear cut good guys and bad guys will be frustrated to find that this is, in fact, a movie populated only by bad buys. The fact that a few of the characters are said to be family men and fathers in their own right doesn't do anything to let us sympathize with them, and as such, by the time the movie gets to the finale and everyone starts shooting at one another, we don't care as much as the filmmakers had probably hoped we would.

Underneath all the f-bombs and c-words there's a half way decent story being told and the performances are quite good all around, but so much of it gets lost not just in the sensationalism of the dialogue but in the editing style as well that you can easily lose sight of this - don't bother with this one unless you can pay close attention, as it's not a good 'background noise movie' (not a complaint, obviously, but only to say that this one requires the audience to pay closer attention than others of its ilk). The thick English accents that the characters sport may also prove tricky to those not accustomed to such speech patterns, though obviously this is in keeping with the actual people who inspired these characters.

If you don't mind that the remarkably fast paced dialogue is so ridden with creative cursing and have no problem with the way that the story jumps around, you'll find quite a bit of good entertainment value here. In amongst the dirty deals and backstabbing nastiness are some effective moments of humor and some good, tense drama. The locations used add the perfect sort of seediness to the proceedings while the cast are all quite game and very good in their roles. That's enough to make this worth a watch for those who enjoy what the British can bring to the overdone gangster film.

Video:

While the 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is darker than you might expect it or want it to be in spots, this is otherwise a pretty decent representation of some spotty looking source material. The movie was obviously made with a gritty aesthetic in mind and this transfer replicates that well and uses a fairly dark color scheme throughout. Color reproduction is pretty decent and skin tones look natural enough while detail is about where it should be for a film like this. All in all the movie looks pretty good, though it won't send hardcore videophiles running into the streets to sing its praises.