Any movie from the Shane Meadows/Paddy Considine team-up is always welcome and here they go back to their roots and the character of ‘Le Donk’ who has been around for about 10 years.
Self funded (with help from Warp) and shot in 5 days with no script and no idea how it would turn out, this mockumentary features Shane Meadows playing a ‘Martin di Bergi’ version of himself as he follows Le Donk (Paddy Considine), a music industry loser and abuser who you kind of like and his new 20 stone rapper protégé Scor-zay-zee (played by himself) going up to Manchester to roadie for, in Le Donk’s words: ‘The Arctical Monkies’.
I watched this all the way through with a smile on my face – I was pleasantly surprised at how well it all worked – it could easily have been awful. Enjoyable stuff. The whole audience left happy. Can’t say fairer than that.
Oh – don’t leave as the end credits start – you’ll miss a very funny monologue from Le Donk.