Marching Powder
Danny Dyer is reunited with the director Nick Love for a stylish, disturbing, witty state-of-the-nation romp about a reprehensible addict with a foul mouth and a criminal disposition.
Shock value: Danny Dyer
Image courtesy of True Brit Entertainment.
There is undoubtedly a demographic that will hoover up Nick Love’s Marching Powder for all the wrong reasons. If that is the case, they’d best approach the film with their most objectionable mates and a six-pack of beer. Alternatively, one could view the film as a banging piece of social commentary armed with a silver tongue. The director Nick Love and the actor Danny Dyer previously collaborated on Goodbye Charlie Bright (2001), The Football Factory (2004), The Business (2005) and Outlaw (2007). But it’s been a while now. Dyer went on to play Mick Carter in EastEnders and to become the poster boy of yob culture. Even before his nine-year stint in EastEnders, the actor had penned his memoir Straight Up and promised that he wouldn’t appear in the soap until he was “fat, bald and fifty.”
In Marching Powder, Dyer plays Jack Jones (not the singer), who is fat, balding and forty-five. He’s not a nice geezer and it’s quite a naked, brave choice for Dyer to show Jack at his physical worst. The first few minutes of the film, narrated by an elderly and cultured actor in the manner of Derek Jacobi, set the tone, both for the outrageousness and ribald humour. There’s something here to offend everyone and the opening monologue is up there with Alex’s soliloquy from A Clockwork Orange and Mark Renton’s from Trainspotting. In fact, both of the aforementioned loom over Marching Powder in its narrative choices and style, even stealing the same snatches of Beethoven used in the former. It’s hard to recall any movie that has used the ‘c’ word so liberally, or revelled in the bad behaviour of middle-aged men who think it’s a hoot to spike a friend’s carton of orange juice with cocaine while he’s on a court order to go cold turkey.
‘Marching powder’ is yob jargon for ‘dickie,’ which is street slang for cocaine, and it seems astonishingly available and cheap in Jack’s world. In spite of his insalubrious lifestyle, Jack is married to a culturally sensitive beauty, Dani (Stephanie Leonidas), whose ten-year-old son ‘JJ’ attends private school in Woking. Unable to cast a child actor the legitimate way – because of the language he would be required to use – Nick Love had to opt for Arty Dyer, Danny’s own. One can see why. In one of the film’s funniest lines, JJ asks, “Dad, can I watch some pan-sexual porn?” To which Jack replies, “At your age, you can f***ing watch straight porn!” Jack is not only a terrible father; he’s a terrible husband and a terrible human being. Is redemption an option? For Jack to avoid prison, a sympathetic judge gives him six weeks to get his nose clean or to face the consequences. But with friends like his, it’s not really an option…
While Marching Powder intends to be a gas, it does focus on a segment of society that is all too real, an underclass that enjoys knocking heads together, binging on Pornhub and drinking themselves to oblivion. And no doubt there’s an audience that will love to see Jack mirroring their own degenerate lifestyle. Deep within the folds of his beer belly, there is the old romantic who wants to reconnect with his wife and one senses that the film might slip into Richard Curtis territory. Nick Love has supplied a cracker of a script and Dyer gives it his all, while Leonidas (excellent) steers an even emotional keel without losing the comic timing. In fact, she gets to deliver the most romantic line in the movie, which shows you how close to the sewer it lingers: As a treat, “I thought I’d let you smash my backdoorsy” (it’s better in context).
Not all the dialogue is cliché free and much of the subject matter is profoundly depressing – as well as often scabrously funny. There are those who will absolutely loathe it, certain left-wing liberals who will see it as a brazen, ironic take on contemporary Britain and the anti-woke brigade who will view it as a joyous call-to-arms (unless you’re a bipolar Romany). So, it really seems as if the film is trying to have its coke and snort it.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Danny Dyer, Stephanie Leonidas, Calum MacNab, Arty Dyer, Bailey Patrick, Lex Shrapnel, Janet Kumah, Geoff Bell, Dean Harrison, Phillip Ray Tommy, Daniel Fearn, Stanley J. Browne, Leon Dean, Philippe Brenninkmeyer, and the voice of Sir Derek Jacobi.
Dir Nick Love, Pro Chris Clark and Will Clarke, Screenplay Nick Love, Ph Simon Stolland, Pro Des Declan Price, Ed Pani Scott, Music Alfie Godfrey, Costumes Molly Emma Rowe, Sound Simon Haupt.
True Brit Entertainment-True Brit Entertainment.
96 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 7 March 2025. Cert. 18.
