This Is England is a masterly crafted drama. The film manages to balance comedy and a sence of tragedy incredibly well throughout the entire film. The acting is simply brilliant. For a first-time actor, I was blown away by the performance of Thomas Turgoose, who played Sean. Stephen Graham, the actor who played Combo, provided the most effective and dramatic scenes in the film, and was absolutely fantastic. The writing seems incredibly real, and you feel as if you are almost watching a documentary because of how natural the dialogue feels. The cinematography is great, it is well-directed, and the story is captivating. My only criticism would be that the music, on occasion, does some of the thinking for you, and there were just one or two scenes I found to be a little cheesy. Definitely watch this film. You will be blown away by the realness of it, and it surely won't be a waste of your time.

This is a gritty and gripping British film, that was later spun-off into some TV series that never quite lived up to the film that preceded them.It's not an easy watch at times, and the language and violence will put many off, but if you can stay with it you will find some good points on society being made, and some strong acting performances.It wasn't my sort of thing though.

It's July 1983. Shaun Fields is small in stature with a giant chip on his shoulder. He lost his beloved father in the Falklands. He gets thrown out by the Pakistani shopkeeper and gets into a fight in school. He is befriended by Woody and his gang. They get into minor mischief and friendly mayhem. Shaun gets Smell as his girlfriend. His mother won't buy him Dr. Martens. The group is disrupted by Combo returning from prison. Combo takes over leadership as he pushes his white power agenda. Woody, Jamaican Milky, and others leave but Shaun falls for Combo. Combo takes the group to a National Front meeting with the call "This is England".The kid is amazing and no punches are pulled. Shane Meadows puts his soul into this. The music is terrific. All the characters are vivid and specific highlighted by Combo and Woody. There is a sparse power and intensity to the story.

This movie is full of tragedy, yet also redemption. It is a story about one young boy who ends up in the wrong crowd. It is 1983 and Shaun is a 12-yearold boy whose father was killed a year ago in the Falklands War. Worth noting is the choice of year, as it was a time of major political and social upheaval in Britain. Miner strikes and dissatisfaction with Thatcher's regime. It is this dissatisfaction that also is shown here, albeit from a very extreme perspective of the skinhead leader Combo. Combo is a character full of contradictions, as he is both a racist and nationalist, and at the same time in denouncing the Falklands War as a rubbish Thatcher-invention, he is also talking the language of the common man, the oppressed man. Those who have been hurt by the war the most are people like him, people who had no grudge against Argentina but had to fight in that war, millions of miles away from home. While at the same time many so-called "respectable" and "politically correct" Englishmen and Britons supported that war and many still think it was right to fight it. This shows the yawning gap between the working class and the upper class. Working class is sick of having to take foreigners from third world countries "taking over" their neighbourhoods with their stores and restaurants and "taking their jobs", while the government does nothing and profits from the foreign "injection".Shaun is a kind of objective figure here, who is never too much on either side, even though he accepts Combo as a sort of father figure or big brother figure. I think even the ones among us who hold some kind of grudge towards the immigrants, especially ones from afar, will feel sickened by the scene where Combo holds a knife against an Indian boy's throat, just because he and his friends played football on "his" court. Even if some of us have had negative experiences with for instance a Pakistani or Indian, watching this makes us pity that Indian boy. I know it made me feel like that and it took away any kind of grudge I might have felt towards their kind. Stephen Graham does a great job as Combo and the young Tom Turgoose also is very effective for a debutante and for his age. This is a film everyone should watch and learn from. It is a young boy's spiritual education, as Shaun finally realizes that his father didn't die fighting for the nationalist, racist England but for a united England. And everyone must accept that their society has changed.Combo is one unhappy, tormented character. A guy who was obviously scarred early in life and cannot feel anything but anger, or can he? Despite always trying to look as cold and hard as possible, he harbours feelings for Lol, the girlfriend of his friend who then turns away from him because of his racism, after Combo returns from prison. After he gets rebuked by Lol for confessing his feelings for her, he gets more dangerous. He only wants to feel loved and to have a good life, but can't. He hangs out with losers for the most part. One exception is the mild-mannered Milky, the half-Jamaican. This all makes you wonder: is Combo really a racist? Or is it only anger and frustration that make him say and do racist things? This is a very strong character study and one of the few films I have seen to try and deconstruct what lies behind, or inside, an average racist and his mind.I give this film a 9, because it is a very compelling and important film and a good lesson for any young man who may harbour some kind of animosity towards people of other race. Feeding on hatred and living on hatred will only make you miserable and end in tragedy, as it does for Combo. But one can hope that he is headed towards finding redemption as well, while Shaun found the right way to go.