Its ALot is a British Urban Comedy, set in London and focuses on one middle class teenage boy Shawn. With his parents away, Shawn is very eager to impress the college honey, Chrissy (Roxy Sternberg), driving by the Sacred Heart college in his Dad’s Lotus he catches her and her crews eye and ends up taking her for a spin. After dropping her off in the “hood” he runs scared when he sees the local gang fast approaching him. In his attempt to make a quick getaway he causes “20 grand’s” worth of damage to the car and spends the rest of the film coming up with ways to raise the money with his hilariously simply friends. During the course of the film he ends up falling for the college honey’s best friend, who unfortunately, is in need of 15 grand worth of treatment for leukaemia.
Directors, Darwood Grace (Anuvahood) and Femi Oyeniran (who also starred in the main role of Shawn, as well as starring in Adulthood, Kidulthood etc), have done a fantastic job in putting together a current and hilarious comedy that isn’t afraid to hold back, from the not quite political correct white Dad (Stephen Marcus) to the middle class black family who seem to have forgotten where they came from until Shawn’s Dad discovers what’s happened to his beloved car and goes in hard on poor Shawn.
The list of cameos in this film is endless with stars from Kidulthood, Adulthood and Anuvahood, the amount of faces you will all be familiar with from the British urban TV and film world is astonishing, and there’s a hell of a lot of comedic talent oozing out of the screen. Femi Oyeniran is obviously a grown man (I’m not even going to guess at how old he is); he certainly has got the frustrated teenage boy vibe down to a fine art.
It also seems like the Radio 1xtra DJ’s have come out in full force, Sarah-Jane Crawford has the biggest part as Shawn’s auntie and we see her laid bare i.e. without her trademark red lipstick. Not only is she a great DJ and to be honest, a bit of a stunner, she actually surprised me with her acting skills too. We also see the likes of DJ Target, Tim Westwood and Ace giving us all a bit of a belly laugh.
While the acting can be quite cliché and a bit over the top at times and with lots of cringe moments, it’s this that makes it the best British comedy we will see this summer.
