Gassed

This is not the best week to be releasing a film that features a character spraying a corrosive liquid at the victim of a botched robbery. Although this London-based moped crime drama pointedly condemns the acid-chucker, it still, given recent events, feels horribly jarring as a plot device. The film follows Ash (Stephen Odubola) as he gets sucked into a phone-snatching crime spree, first to earn money to support his schoolgirl sister, but later as much for the jolt of adrenaline it gives him.The story is so generic that…

Here is a solidly made high-energy London crime drama, which skirts around the Sumotherhood cliches … just about. A moped gang is making money and having toxic fun stealing smartphones and wallets out of people’s hands – then they escalate to robbing jewellery shops, with calamitous results. It’s co-written by Taz Skylar, who plays one of the robbers, and directed by George Amponsah, who in 2015 made the important documentary The Hard Stop about the Mark Duggan case.Stephen Odubola plays Ash, a basically decent young guy…