Review of the DVD - rating: * * * 1/2

Review of the film - rating: * * * *

Picture grain is the enemy of MPEG encoding, and it's all to evident to see the struggles the authoring house have had with this one. For the most part they get away with it, but some scenes (strangely, these are mostly exterior) suffer horribly. A sequence in a car at around 84.20 looks especially bad, where it appears to be raining hard both in and outside the vehicle.

The sound, however, is a different ball game, and is given the full 5.1 treatment. For the most part this is under-used, with the surrounds only occasionally employed, but where they do fire into life, the effect is a treat - the pinging golf ball is a particular aural delight. The mix is very British though, with dialogue incredibly loud, reducing the dynamic range and thus impact of the smoking barrel gunshots. One other criticism - the ADR work is very fast and loose, with lip sync wandering all over the place.

Elsewhere we have a good package though. The interviews are nicely put together, and can be seen in one continuous stream or piecemeal. The trailer (a complete steal from Trainspotting) is a welcome addition, as it the excellent accompanying booklet, stuffed full of information, trivia, and colour photos. The whole thing is held together by nice understated animated menus, featuring slo-mo red tinged clips from the film itself - a pity there is no accompanying music though. One other note - the packaging oversells the running time by 4 minutes or so.

Although it would have been nice to see even more of the triumphant efforts made by the crew up against huge budgetary constraints, and a better coding process, this is a strong overall effort. It's especially good to see Polygram developing and starting to move away from the bug-riddled monstrosities of yesteryear. Go buy.

But then then the plot kicks in, and the performances improve with it. We centre on four East End mates who owe half a million pounds, having been successfully shafted in a card game. When they learn of a robbery planned by their neighbours, they hatch a desperate plan themselves to rob the robbers. Clearly everything is going to go wrong, but you've no idea how much, or how bizarrely (if that's a real word).

This is a real treat, with the four young leads and even Vinnie Jones ably acquitting themselves. The tangled story is expertly woven together by newcomer Ritchie, with every penny of his meagre budget eeked out and apparently trippled in on-screen value. Ultimately, this is just a hugely enjoyable throwaway romp, more so than our other recent crime successes such as Shallow Grave, and it revels in it - it just keeps getting better and better right to the closing credits.

A film to make you stand up and cheer "I'm British and I'm proud". Fantastic.