Dead Man Running

When illness causes his mother (Brenda Blethyn) to need a wheelchair, doting con Nick Kane (Tamer Hassan) goes straight, opening a travel agency with a £100,000 loan from sinister gangster, Mr Thigo (50 Cent). But when the credit crunch bites, mean-spirited Mr Thigo calls in his loan and gives Nick 24 hours to pay – or his mum gets it. With best mate Bing (Danny Dyer) in tow, Nick first tries to raise the readies legally but soon slips back into his old ways of intimidation and violence.

Partly financed by footballers Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole, this budget-conscious, simplistically plotted and often cringingly performed crime caper is not quite as inauspicious a producing debut as one might have expected. Granted, its message is contradictory – on one hand it drums home the old ‘crime doesn’t pay’ adage, while on the other it demonstrates exactly the opposite – but its lighthearted, comic tone proves relatively genial. And Blethyn’s a right laugh as the gaga mum with a mite more gumption than first meets the eye.