Shooters

updated 12/06/01

Screen Caps from "High Performance" on HTV









          Shooters is a hard hitting, high voltage, nouveau crime film set in a neon lit underworld seeped in drugs and guns. When Gilly steps out of prison he has nothing and no one but J, a no-good hustler with dangerous pipe dreams. All Gilly wants is the money he's owed, but J has invested it in machine guns. Enter Max Bell, J.'s boss. Ruthless as a tiger shark, when Max finds out J is dealing guns behind his back he demands a sacrifice as punishment. At the dawn of the new century cocaine kings and schoolboy gangsters collide to make Shooters 'a nasty little gangster film'.







          Gilly steps out of prison with nothing and no one except J, the friend he took the rap for. A two-bit hustler with a major drug problem, J doesn't even notice Gilly is out early. Still, they trust each other, and that means something.

          All Gilly wants is to start over with the money he's owed, but J has invested it in another drugs-for-guns deal. When he sees J's wife Marie again, Gilly can't help but realize everything he hasn't got. She has built a life for them, while J steadily screws it up. Yet despite his anger and frustration, Gilly agrees to go along with J, as always.

          J's boss is Max Bell, a man who will do whatever it takes, whatever it costs, and never think twice. Even J's own kid brother, Skip, is working for him running a team of teenage drug dealers. These kids have seen it all. Skip's already got the attitude, now all he wants is a gun. As J and Gilly do the rounds for Max, the monotony of violence and abuse becomes a catalyst and the tension between them is finally brought to a head. J pulls a gun on his old friend.

          Pressure continues to build. The cops are now onto J in more ways than he could know. Max learns from his police contact of J's plans to make a separate gun deal with their main supplier, Jackie Junior. In order to regain control of his business, Max demands that J sacrifice Gilly in a drug deal set-up. J doesn't realize that Max is onto him and that the real plan is for the police to blame J for Gilly's murder.

          Faced with Jackie Junior, wracked with guilt and about to do the deal, J finally cracks, firing off a spray of bullets. All hell breaks loose as he and Gilly blow their way out onto the street. Only then does J discover that Gilly has his own plans.





Britfilms.com

          The dark story of a young man freed from prison who betrays his best friend to escape London's seedy and depraved underground crime world, Shooters was written nearly seven years ago by three friends, Gary Young, Andrew Howard and Louis Dempsey.

          Last summer, they showed the script to young British directing and producing partnership Colin Teague and Marjory Bone of Cool Beans Productions, with whom Howard had worked as an actor on the 30-minute film North West One.

          "I liked the fact that it was gritty and raw and not in the same vein as the more cheeky chappy gangster films that have come out," Bone explains. "It was very realistic in the way it dealt with drugs and guns and not at all glamorous."

          Cool Beans agreed to produce the film with Dutch company Catapult Productions, run by Glenn Durfort, with whom Teague had studied at the London International Film School. Dutch producer Jan Bruinstroop came in as executive producer as both Bone and Teague were both first-time film-makers. The budget was raised via a private investor connected to Catapult Productions. Howard and Dempsey took the lead roles of the two friends while the cast was filled out with familiar names, such as Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffud. "We were lucky that Colin and Andrew played in a football team with some lads who happened to be up-and-coming British actors," says Bone.

          Principal photography took place during November and December in London. The production took up residence in a huge disused warehouse above a McDonald's in the King's Cross area. In addition to providing sets and studio space, the warehouse also housed production offices, wardrobe and prop departments.

          Several international sales agents are now in talks with Cool Beans to acquire the project.


Phase 9 Entertainment
Dr. Kuma

          Gilly (Louis Dempsey) steps out of prison with nothing and no one except his so called best friend 'J' (Andrew Howard) whom he took the rap for in a previous job. Times have changed since he entered jail several years ago with J moving from soft drug pushing to a dealer in guns (hence the title as J's wife describes her husband). In J's words "Guns are the drug of the millennia- the pushers need something to shoot before the others shoot up". The two title characters still trust each other, which means one thing; trouble.

          This is a superb but very, very bleak Brit flick. The acting is exceptional. The two leads grate at first but you start to worry for them as the story progresses and the performance of Adrian Dunbar as the gangland modfather is very well portrayed- as in all good villains, from BOND to GET CARTER, he has presence and a sense of humour, but these never detract from one thing- that he's a murderer.

          The locations used are really incredible. I haven't seen the urban jungle portrayed so bleakly since the tower block desolation of CANDYMAN. Hard to believe this is England 1999 (when the movie was directed) and that these locations are all within a three-mile radius of Kings Cross, London. Frightening.

          If the locations weren't chilling enough, there are some truly shocking scenes. The scene when J shows Gilly his cocaine den is unforgettable. The shiny, pristine surfaces of the weighing tables in stark contrast to the surrounding decay. However, it's when the weighers take off their masks when J addresses them, that holds the real shock. They are all around 12-14 years old. This memorable scene, along with the superb acting from all the cast including Melanie Lynskey (virtually unrecognisable from the little girl in HEAVENLY CREATURES), Matthew Rhys and Gerard Butler (who obviously loves the chance to ham it up as Jackie Junior) make this a really disturbing but brilliant film.

          Andrew Howard who also had a hand in the script and the rest of the cast really make you think that London really hasn't moved on from 1665. In those days, the great unwashed were sick with the plague. In the same way, the kids and the junkies take on the same unwashed pallor, but their plague is self inflicted and comes in many forms, but the symptoms are the same, slowly dying, slouched in a corner in a form of hell on Earth. The constant smoking of cigarettes of the two leads is as though they want to cleanse the air around them, as they realise that they are surrounded by the smell of death and decay, which again takes many forms. The title obviously could also relate to the use of drugs, but the brief high only leads to worse lows. Life for these people really is a living hell, where they spend time shooting themselves up, only to let themselves and their loved ones down.

          Although this film is a very bleak portrayal of life - it's British after all - it stands head and shoulders above those others which have gathered so much praise. Who knows where this movie will be seen? If it weren't given the support it deserves, that would be the biggest crime of all.


The Netherlands/UK, 2000, Drama, 35 mm, colour, 92 min.
Director: Colin Teague & Glen Durfort
Producer: Margery Bone for Coolbeans Films (UK) & Catapult Productions (Netherlands)
Co Producers: Greg Campbell, Glenn Durfort, Colin Teague
Executive Producer: George Skene - Co Executive Producer: Jan Bruinstroop
Cast: Adrian Dunbar, Andrew Howard, Gerard Butler, Louis Dempsey, Emma Fielding, Ioan Gruffyd, Matthew Rhys, Jason Hughes, Melanie Lynskey and introducing Jamie Sweenie.
Language: English




click on Graceland to go home


*NEWS*  *BIOGRAPHY*  *FILMOGRAPHY*  *PHOTOGALLERY*  *INTERVIEWS*  *ARTICLES*  *FUNSTUFF*  *LINKS*  *FAQS*