Auteur, gentleman and compulsive movie machine, everybody loves Shane Meadows, right? And everybody loves Steve Coogan inspired character driven comedy, right? So Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee, a broad mockumentary based around two Sheffield losers with hip hop aspirations, ought to be a riot. Erm, not quite.
True, Paddy Considine puts in a massive effort as Le Donk, an angry deadbeat dad-to-be whose greatest achievement in life is landing work as a roadie for the Arctic Monkeys (the band duly and gamely feature as themselves). His one shot at the big time depends on persuading the quartet to allow Scor-Zay-Zee, Le Donk’s rapping client and musical cohort, to take the stage for a support slot. The gig comes through, of course, but not without complications and potential catastrophes. There are lovely moments here; the fact Le Donk keeps calling his musical saviours the Arctical Monkeys, the way he conflates the words artistic and autistic, but it’s never enough to persuade us that this is a proper film. Made as part of Mr. Meadows’ commendable Five Day Film Movement, Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee sadly looks precisely like one would expect a film made in that time frame would.
We can see and feel the comic potential of Messrs. Meadows and Considine’s efforts, but the ideas never really quite expand to fit a movie screen. Happen upon this after BBC2’s Newsnight some wintry evening and you might think it a cabinet of unexpected treasure. But if it looks like a TV special and quacks like a TV special, then brother, that’s where it ought to be.
The maniacal energy may recall Mr. Meadows’ early guerrilla camcorder classics (Small Time, Where’s the Money, Ronnie?) but at 71 minutes the film is just too short and too uneven to really work as a theatrical release. Worth a look, nonetheless.