SE1: Welcome to Hell   Starring: Ty Bankinson and Christopher Tajah Brightspark Productions RRP: £19.99 BSPK777 Certificate: 15 Available 23 April 2012

Evans, a small time drug dealer, finds that the birth of his daughter is making him question his way of life. Wanting to give the little girl a better life than he has experienced, Evans tries to hold down a regular job, until he is fired. It would seem that even this setback does not drive him back into a life of crime, until he is robbed of his cash at gun point…

SE1: Welcome to Hell (2012 - 1 hr, 29 min, 53 sec) is a gangster thriller, directed by Devron Callender, from a Peter Lowe script.

Gangster films have been popular since the time of D. W. Griffiths, who, although he did not invent filmic grammar, certainly was the first director to formulise the art. With that much history, the archetypes and tropes of the genre are well defined.

SE1, either due to stylistic reasons or budgetary restrictions, has followed the post war Italian Neorealist and the French New Wave in filming the script in real locations, giving the project a Cinéma vérité feel.

Ty Bankinson, as Evans, is one of the better things about the film, portraying his character as intelligent. However, the majority of the characters are not sympathetic, in fact their amoral lifestyle makes them difficult to sympathise with. Evans does not present as the big gang leader that the DVD’s cover would have you believe, but a small time crook, peddling chemical death in his own neighbourhood, making both his own life a misery, and adding to the overall deprivation of his closest neighbours.

The only moral centre to the film comes from Christopher Tajah, as Science, who tries, unsuccessfully, to challenge the gang’s behaviour and assumptions. He and Bankinson are the two most naturalistic actors in the film. For the most part the other actors struggle hard to bring their characters to life. The problem often lies in the script which is frankly not particularly great, nor does it have much to say about Evan's life. By the end of the film neither Evans, nor anyone else, appear to have been touched or changed by their experiences.

One look at the film will convince you that this was made on a budget, a very small budget. The direction shows elements of flair, the opening sequence is particularly good. The bottom line is that a poor budget does not automatically guarantee a poor film, but SE1 is a film which struggles to stand alongside very similar but more slickly made films. The disc contains no extras.

5

Charles Packer