When Adam Deacon sent up the turgid inner-city dramas Kidulthood and Adulthood with his 2011 comedy Anuvahood, he was dissing the hand that fed him: Deacon was one of the stars of the earlier Noel Clarke-penned films, which made it all the more frustrating that none of his barbs hit their target. His aim in the intervening 12 years hasn’t noticeably improved. This new semi-sequel, set in a modern-day London awash with guns and gangs, reunites the earlier picture’s writing duo Deacon and Michael Vu, who are joined by Jazzie Zonzolo, and brings back several cast members. Among them is Richie Campbell, reprising his performance as a lisping thug and still shouting his lines in a bid to make them funny. It’s a tactic employed by the film across the board: if in doubt, go loud.
The twitchy Deacon and the irrepressible Zonzolo play Riko and Kane, bunk-bed buddies out to prove themselves roadmen by trying their hand at mugging, selling weapons and robbing banks. This might be standard slapstick fare if the tone were not so inconsistent. One minute, rivals are settling scores quaintly by making their enemies dance in their underwear in a crowded club, or recruiting after-school urchins memorably described as “CBBC mandem”. The next, people are being hurled to their deaths from fourth-floor balconies or mown down gruesomely in a hit-and-run.
Any stabs at thematic seriousness have an incongruous feel. It’s admirable that Deacon, who has been vocal about his own mental health issues, has made his character bipolar, but the subject isn’t explored so much as mentioned repeatedly.
The film’s scattershot approach extends to celebrity cameos. There are fleeting turns from London Hughes and Lethal Bizzle, a joke-free scene for Peter Serafinowicz as a crime kingpin, and a walk-on for Jeremy Corbyn, who pops up to say “Allow it, wasteman”, then vanishes. A low-point is reached early on when Ed Sheeran takes a dump in a hedge. Whether it’s a good look for one of the world’s wealthiest musicians to go gunning for lols by playing an unwashed, homeless drug addict called “Crack Ed” is debatable. That his gurning performance almost eclipses Galway Girl as the biggest blight on his CV is not.
• Sumotherhood is released on 13 October in UK cinemas.
