IF YOU thought Somerstown, Shane Meadows's brief last film, seemed a tad insubstantial – more of a delightful exercise than a proper feature – then you'd best think carefully before paying to see this agreeable wisp of a mock documentary. Set beside Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, Somerstown begins to seem a little like 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Heavily improvised, the picture finds Meadows regular Paddy Considine as Donk, the feckless manager of tubby white rapper Scor-zay-zee (Dean Palinczuk). In the course of the film's 71 minutes, Donk visits his former girlfriend ( Peep Show's Olivia Colman), now pregnant with his baby, before going to Manchester, where Arctic Monkeys are set to play a stadium gig. Donk hopes that his charge will play support and that he will be allowed to twiddle the keyboards.
Le Donk & Scor-zay-zeewas made as part of an initiative that encourages film-makers to deliver a feature in just five days. When viewed with that in mind, the film does seem like an achievement of some note. It has reasonably fleshy characters, more than half a dozen good jokes, and an earthy warmth that only Meadows, director of the superb This Is England, is capable of stirring up.
So the director's fans will want to take a look. Le Donkremains, however, the most jaw-droppingly slight film you will see in cinemas this year. Despite just crawling over the hour mark, it still finds time for two or three musical interludes and one very indulgent scene in which Meadows, playing himself as a working-class Nick Broomfield, screams with laughter while Considine breaks character and improvises an unamusing rap.
It would, perhaps, be best to view the film as you might regard an intriguing bootleg from a much- loved recording artist. When a favourite album is reissued in a two-disc edition, you listen to the bonus track, nod with pleasure and then never play it again. In other words, time for a real film, Shane, old man.
Directed by Shane Meadows.
Starring Paddy Considine, Dean Palinczuk, Olivia Colman, Richard Graham, Seamus O'Neill
15A cert, Queen's, Belfast; IFI, Dublin, 71 min
