Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee

Shane Meadows has done some good work by focussing on what is presumably his home turf – working class Midlands. Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee belongs well enough in that territory but you really wish he had done it better, or chosen another approach than he did.

Shot over 5 days, it purports to tell the story of Le Donk, a boastful layabout roadie who has latched onto a tubby young white rapper named Scor-Zay-Zee, and how they get to open a festival headlined by the Arctic Monkeys.

Whilst Dean Palinczuk is very effective as Scor-Zay-Zee, the choice of having Paddy Considine play Le Donk undermines the mockumentary format which turns very much on our inability to tell if the whole thing is a seup. Seeing as we how we know that it is so from the get-go all that we are really left with is Considine’s largely to-camera performance . This is very good but as he is playing a talentless, boorish slob there’s not a whole lot of appeal in it, leaving one wondering why Meadows even bothered. There are a couple of moments of delicious humour but these largely derive from Palinczuk's inertia and the rest of the film feels like a build-up to something that never arrives.

DVD Extras: Deleted scenes; Theatrical trailer.

Available from: Madman

 

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