There are a select few genres that are staples for filmmakers, especially
ones fairly new to their craft. Perennially found on this list is the horror
flick and their more realistic sibling, the crime thriller, are reasonably easy
to create and has a fair chance of being successful. One of the fundamental
reasons for this ‘go-to’ status among the writers and directors is these types
of stories readily tap into some of the primitive emotions and drives. These
internal motivations have persisted through a plethora of modifications to our
genome because they are essential to our survival. Horror is based on the most
primeval of all responses; feat and the resultant choice between ‘flight or
fight’. The crime movie is much more insidious in its appearing. In some fashion
people are inexplicably drawn to the determination typically found in the crime
thriller’s lead character. They are survivors, well able to adapt to
circumstances outside the neatly protected sphere forged by society and its
layers of protective rules, regulations and laws. The gangster is an archetype
that defies the stringent the restrictions society demands in compensation for
security. We can watch a gangster flick living vicariously outside the law
removed for a couple of hours from the mundane reality of our lives for the
seedy, dark under belly of our culture. Just like the horror film occasionally a
crime movie comes around that manages to adhere to the precepts of the genre
while affording the audience with a significantly greater emotional and
psychological depth. I recently encountered such a film and was immediately
impressed with the production. The film has a simple title quite befitting a
movie about a lower echelon criminal, ‘Shifty’. What the filmmaker, Eran Creevy,
lacks in items on his resume he more than readily compensates for with an innate
potential and demonstrative ability. It has been a very long time since I have
watched a movie with a crook as its central characters.
The setting of the film is placed on the fringes of London, the neighborhoods
were the economically disenfranchise eke out their lives. This is the kind of
movie generally referred to as a ‘day in the life’ movie that provides the
viewers with a twenty four hour slice in the life of the characters. The titular
role here, Shifty (Riz Ahmed), is a neighborhood drug dealer. This is not some
member of a vast cartel or international narcotic ring, Shifty is just a young
man with little in the way of marketable skills or career opportunities so he
survives his existence by selling other a means to numb others of their own
plights. This is the same point of embarkation we have become accustomed to
expect. It is also where this imaginative filmmaker begins to depart from the
format that has defined this genre for so many decades. This is what I found so
amazingly compelling about this movie. It simultaneously incorporates the
hackney elements of a criminal flick while infusing it with pathos normally not
found in the usual examples of this sort of story. You expect to watch a young
man struggling against all odds to make it through each day. A contrast is
frequently placed in the story to help underline the ‘choice’ to follow a life
of crime. In the forties this was traditionally accomplished with a pair of
brothers, one a criminal and the other either a district attorney or priest.
Here Creevy plays out a variation on the theme. Juxtaposed to the aptly named
Shifty is his childhood friend, Chris (Daniel Mays). This is where the single
day time span is utilized. After a number of years Chris returns to the old
neighborhood for a visit. To this end Chris decides to attend a party in order
to catch up with old friends. There he crosses paths with Shifty and through a
normal series of ordinary events, the wind up spending the day together. This
gives the audience a firsthand view of two roads that started off together but
literally diverged in the woods.
Chris becomes the surrogate for the audience representing a perspective that
allows immediate identification. This is more than providing a contrast between
two men of approximately the same age and nearly identical origins. This plot
device becomes a focal point in relating not only the particulars of the
situation but the groundwork for the emotional dissection that is about to get
under way. Chris is introduced to an aspect of life that he knew about, not only
with an intellectual awareness of a businessman reading about such things in the
morning papers. Chris grew up surrounded by petty crimes, minor drug deals and
desperate junkies scrounging for their next into the ephemeral relief the drug
will bring. As Chris follows Shifty along on his daily rounds Chris is given a
foreboding glimpse into how his life could have easily turned out. The poignancy
that gives this film its incredible emotional power is the way we can so readily
identify with. Every member of the audience has a pivotal movement that could
have sent their lives careening off in a radically different direction. Like a
tiny pebble in the path of a bolder rolling down a hill; something seemingly
insignificant can effect a sizable change.
Chris not only witnesses the life he might have had the more important
content presented here is the way little details Chris tried to move pass now
confront him putting on display how incredibly simple a few random events or
miniscule choices have been in shaping the life he has avoiding the existence
Shifty endues. Chris watches as another alternative for denizens of that
neighbor face. He could have become one of the drug addicts nearly devoid of
humanity. They were reduced to this state by the overpowering siren call of the
drug. Chris realizes you either get out of that area or die there. There is
little discernment between which sides of the transaction you are on; the die is
cast and without an almost miraculous intervention fate has been sealed. Eran
Creevy is relatively new to both screenwriting and direction but it is rare to
see such inherent ability as a story teller. He lays out the day in the lives of
these two friends as they reconnect in their familiar neighborhood. Creevy may
start out with the recognizable tropes we all know but what he accomplishes with
them is spectacular. This might seem slowly paced for a crime drama but that is
because it is a façade of this sort of film. Actually ‘Shifty’ is a
psychological examination splaying a life open in order to determine where
life’s road forked. Creevy frames each shot in a fashion that the lighting and
placements reinforce the mood set by the interaction of the characters. He
foregoes the urge to rush the conclusion holding fast to telling the story on
his terms.
$hifty EPK
Behind The Scenes Interviews
Behind The $hifty Scenes
"$hifty" Music Video Ft. Riz Mc, Sway & Plan B