Gassed Up(2024)

"Ash" (Stephen Odubola) lives at home with his young sister and his permanently absent or stoned mother. His dream is to start a business of his own (he likes to fix things) and to get her into rehab. To that end he's mixed up with four of his mates in a snatch 'n grab scheme using mopeds to pinch mobile phones and handbags from unsuspecting folks on the street. They sell these on to "Shaz" (Jelena Gavrilovic) who happens to be the cousin of the gang's leader "Dubz" (Taz Skylar). "Ash" finds the shoebox under his bed is gradually filling up, but when he's told his mother's medical costs are likely to run to £25,000 he realises that nicking a few phones ain't going cut it. After a raid to get themselves some new transport goes awry, with one of their number a bit too handy with the spray-on acid, they are reduced to four and given a new task. Rob a jewellery store and make some proper money. When this goes tragically wrong, "Ash" and his pals "Kabz" (Mohammed Mansaray) and "Mole" (Tobias Jowett) have to persuade their briefly ostracised mate "Roach" (Craige Middleburg) to come back and help them - because their paymasters are still demanding a sackful of loot! Up until this point, the film is actually quite decent - a diverse group of life-long mates all carrying out what they reckon are victimless crimes to make some cash. Once the violent elements kick in, though, the plot really heads south. What made it a bit different is subsumed into a rather amateurishly directed affair with implausible police chases, even more unlikely robbery scenarios and just one chunk too much of bad decision making - on and off the screen. Skylar is a man with charisma, but the rest of these characters never light up the screen or the story and by the sequel-suggesting conclusion, I'd sort of lost interest. It is worth a watch with all the "life's there for the taking" stuff going on, but it'll be on the television soon enough and I'm sure it can wait til then.