Review of This Is England

Many other filmmakers dared to portray their own countries' neo-nazi/skinhead/ultra-nationalist subculture, such as Geoffrey Wright with Romper Stomper, Alan Clarke's Made In Britain, or Tony Kaye's American History X, to name some examples. Obviously I wasn't much impressed by the theme. It wasn't new. But what the others kind of fail to deliver to the audience, this one does it quite well. I'm talking about the human side of the characters. We see that skinheads, in this case, are not just simple haters and racist personas, but that those convictions always have a background, and that they don't become that way just because they felt like it. In his case, the background may be a broken home (Combo), the loss of a role model (Shaun) or even the desire to be respected somehow when that isn't happening (Gadget), among other causes. Overall, although it didn't impress me much, I still recognize its quality. Kudos to Meadows.