Chicken Town review — a charming British crime caper with one flaw
The flat, green and sun-kissed East Anglian setting (the Fenlands) is charming. And Bracewell's seeming refusal to embrace traditional dramatic coherence is, in its way, charming. It means that the central tale of an ex-con called Jayce (Ethaniel Davy), who is seduced into drug dealing by a kindly neighbourhood grandad, Kev (Graham Fellows, aka John Shuttleworth), is secondary to the film's larkier, diversionary instincts.
The charm offensive nonetheless falters badly somewhere around the midway mark, specifically during a tedious sequence with the local kingpin (Alistair Green) when Kev insists upon being called Clint, after Clint Eastwood.
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Kev has inherited a freezer full of weed and has thus recruited Jayce and the video-game enthusiast Paula (Amelie Davies) because … well, that's clearly not important. And nor is the 'villain' Lee's initially intense desire to erect a 5G phone mast (referenced, then abandoned). Or the investigation that Jayce is apparently conducting into his case (repeatedly referenced, then swiftly dropped). Or a strange non sequitur scene, outside a caravan, featuring a visit from Lee's stepmother.
The entire film is like this. Random and unfocused. Bit of this. Bit of that. Lots of charm. See how you go.
There are great lines hidden in the mulch, mostly delivered by Fellows. Betraying Kev's digital illiteracy, he says of one of his co-workers, 'His wife ran off with some lad from Senegal that she met on eBay.' But the film inevitably degenerates and too much of it is tiresome, flabby and overindulgent.★★☆☆☆
15, 90min
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