Four Girls on Black Asphalt

4.3.2.1 2010 UK

Directed by

Noel Clarke and Mark Davis

Screening at cinemas now

Oh look. It’s Mickey! Hello Mickey! Mick Mick Mickey!

Right, got that one out of my system!

4.3.2.1, not to be confused with a similarly entitled Perry Rhodan movie from 1967, is another film co-directed by, written by and also co-starring Noel “Mickey from Doctor Who” Clarke.

And it’s a really great movie.

I’ve not seen anything written by or directed by this guy before but all I can say is that the movie I saw this morning is as slickly, stylishly and glossily put together as any current Hollywood mainstream action flick... and it doesn’t really pull any punches either.

The film follows four, admittedly extremely good looking young ladies, over roughly a 48 hour period. It seems very contrived but you don’t really notice that too much as it kinda gets buried in the editing of what is an extremely stylised visual feast. The pacing is relentless... it never really lets up and lets you find rest and that’s probably one of its key strengths since the long line of coincidences which drive the plot forward may start to look a little bit bedroom farce if you were given any real time to think about them.

Early on in the film it starts getting all mid-sixties split screen and, since I’d never seen any of this guys movies before, I immediately assumed that this was probably one of his visual signatures (you know, like DePalma) but after the first half hour played out and the movie, which is told in flashback, caught up to the start of the film again... it became apparent that this technique was being employed as a stylistic device to act as an intro to separate strands of the movie. I hadn’t realised until half an hour through that this was going to be one of those films where the, in this case four, central characters are given their own separate strands and followed individually... all moving forward to the same resolution.

Loads of the cast of recent years of Doctor Who turn up in it... even the guy who is the voice of the Daleks has a solid supporting role... but the best cameo appearance is the two scenes “stolen” by Mr. Silent Bob himself, the one and only Kevin Smith. He seems to be losing a lot of hair but it doesn’t matter. In this movie he plays someone called Larry... but he’s still quite cool.

I think the only minor criticism of this movie from my point of view is that I felt a little bit excluded from the target audience. This film deals with College age teenagers and that seems to be exactly the audience it’s going after. So everything that comes out of the various characters mouths seems a little naive or innocent or... I dunno... just plain childish?

But that’s fair enough. It’s a small grumble and I was so caught up in the snazzy editing and energetic pacing that I kinda forgot everything else. Definitely worth a watch to support a good little British movie that brings a kinda Tarantinoesque quality to the teenage movie market. Good stuff!