Zebra Crossing Review

Zebra Crossing is the first feature from writer and director Sam Holland. Shot in stylish black and white, the film revolves around Justin (Turnbull), a young man living in a broken home in South London. His mother is absent, his father neglectful and his confidante sister bedridden. Justin’s days are spent in the company of his friends, a group of delinquent criminals, led by the unhinged and aggressive Tommy (Wakeham). Justin is torn between a loyalty to his friends and a desire to better himself and to escape the life of prejudice, drugs, violence and crime his companions are choosing for him.

Being a first feature, we can perhaps forgive Holland for a few contrivances and clumsy creative choices, for example the overwritten and portentous narration that occurs sporadically throughout the film. Whilst much of the digetic dialogue has an improvised, naturalistic feel to it, the narration is filled with maladroit phrases such as, ‘the thing is, you can’t just chew someone up and spit them out and expect them not to hate you for it. That’s what society had done to Tommy,’ which is not only a very cheesy line, but also gives the misleading impression that Tommy is on some crusade against the world – in reality, he’s just a violent thug. The film also eschews the socio-realism (with a touch of the surreal) it had been working with nicely in its conclusive scenes, instead opting for unintentionally amusing high melodrama.

At its best, though, the film is oddly reminiscent of a Scorsese gangster film, albeit one filtered through South London’s tower blocks and grimy criminality. There’s also a visceral bare knuckle boxing scene that seems to clearly pay tribute to Fight Club. The film is photographed beautifully; most of its frames could be selected at random and blown up into iconic, stylistic images. Most of the cast make a pretty good stab at their roles and the film has an almost documentary feel to it at times, due to the believability of the characters.

It’s difficult not to soften one’s approach when judging a first feature, especially one with as much effort put into it as this one. Whilst it is pretty rough around the edges and unlikely to pick up much recognition, you should probably watch Zebra Crossing if presented with the chance, not only to support a small wealth of young British talent, but to catch a pretty stylish, often brutal drama that could well launch more than one career. Holland is perhaps one to watch, especially if he polishes his scriptwriting talents to level of his already impressive directorial skills.