Another British tale of gritty urban angst from a first-timer with aspirations, "Rage" is an attempt to blend heist movie with probing character study as three friends, each of whom has his own insecurity, bungle a burglary which they commit in order to cut a hip-hop record. Jamie (aka Rage) is a mouthy rapper; Godwin, a quiet, reasonably contented pianist; and Thomas, a disheartened DJ in search of a cause. All three are certainly in search of their identity, with Jamie proving particularly fretful over his mixed-race background.
Certainly all three young actors turn in fresh, sparky, unforced performances, and are particularly good at capturing the age when young men are caught between the temptations of the adult world and the nonsense of youth.
Their acting certainly suits a film which, with its emphatic use of hand-held camera, recalls any number of inner-city documentaries as it strives for, and generally achieves, in-your-face realism. Yet the downside of realism is that it is much too easy to pepper a film with unexceptional and unmemorable characters, dialogue and situations, and that's just what happens here. The three lead characters are shown up in all their ordinariness by an aggressive drug-dealer who lights up the screen on more than one occasion.
Furthermore, the director spends far too much time on exposition, particularly on the less-than-happy circumstances of the three chums, and is inept at incorporating flashbacks.