Twenty8k

You don’t expect standard-issue drama from screenwriter Paul Abbott, the man behind ‘Shameless’ and ‘State of Play’. But here he is, co-writer of this unexceptional east London thriller set in the run-up to the Olympics. Parminder Nagra (‘ER’) stars as Deeva, who’s called back from her swanky job in Paris when her wayward teenage brother Vipon (Sebastian Nanena) is arrested for murdering a kid outside a nightclub. Two eyewitnesses and CCTV footage put him running from the scene of the crime holding a gun. He’s keeping schtum, but Deeva has a hunch her bro has been framed by members of his own gang (the Twenty8k) – a murky trail then leads all the way to the heart of government. None of this is gritty enough to be convincing, while the corruption-at-the-heart-of-the-Olympics storyline, which must have looked great on paper two years ago, feels out of step with the love-in that London 2012 became.