''Shank'' is a 2009 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

starring Wayne Virgo, Marc Laurent, Alice Payne, Tom Bott and Garry Summers. The film was written by Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin, directed by Simon Pearce & Christian Martin (uncredited), and produced by independent filmmaker Robert Shulevitz and Christian Martin. The film won an Audience award in the 2009

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

International

Gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

and Lesbian Film Festival as well as the Emerging Talent in

Queer Cinema "New Queer Cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in ''Sight & Sound'' magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s. It is also referred to as the "Queer New ...

in 2009 at the

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Plot

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...

, Cal (Wayne Virgo) is a 19-year-old

closeted gay ''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other ( LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and hum ...

gang member who has nothing in his life except drugs, sex, random acts of violence and a secret that he keeps hidden from his mates. An online hookup for sex with a stranger, Scott (Garry Summers), ends in him assaulting and abandoning Scott out in the countryside. This temporarily satisfies but fails to dampen his unspoken desires for his best mate, Jonno (Tom Bott). Nessa (Alice Payne), their twisted, foul-mouthed and controlling, de facto gang leader who harbours much hatred towards everyone for losing a child at the age of 14, suspects that there is something going on between them but is unable to confirm it. Jonno, putty in Nessa's hands, cannot express his own deep rooted and unrequited attachment to Cal. Manipulating situations that bring her closer to having her suspicions confirmed, Nessa sets out about dividing loyalties and encouraging conflict. An innocent student, Olivier (Marc Laurent), falls victim to one of Nessa’s plans and is mugged on her orders by the gang. Cal steps in to restrain them and creates a distraction allowing Olivier to run free. Ignoring Nessa's screams of contempt, he chases after him and offers him a lift by way of an apology. Fearing that the fall-out from Nessa for his actions will be harsh, Cal persuades Olivier to help him out. Seizing the moral high ground and sensing that there was something more to Cal's

Good Samaritan In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, p ...

act, Olivier allows Cal to stay with him for a few days. Acting on his own attraction to Cal, Olivier seduces him and in doing so, exposes Cal to new emotions and a tenderness that he has never experienced before. Soon, the boys are overtaken by the embrace of the first flush of love. Cal and Olivier's relationship progress, but Olivier is warned by Scott, who happens to be one of his professors, to be wary of Cal. Scott gives Olivier his phone number and tells Olivier to contact him if he is ever in need of help. Nessa cannot contain her rage for Cal's disloyalty to the gang and sets about hunting him down, intent on destroying him once and for all. With her gang in tow and Jonno tightly wound up, she kidnaps Olivier, taunting Cal with video messages via her mobile phone, to come and save his boyfriend. Arriving at the abandoned factory where they are all waiting for him, he reveals that he is equally hurt by the child she lost, as he was the father. Meanwhile, Jonno and the other gang members begin to destroy Cal's car before they turn toward him. As the showdown unfolds, Nessa loses all control of events and Jonno explodes in act of sexual aggression by raping Cal and leaving everyone traumatized. Shocked by what she has witnessed, Nessa realizes she will now never be able to break the bond between Cal and Olivier while she and the other gang members flee. Olivier then contacts Scott for help and he rescues them and tends to Cal's wounds. As the film ends Cal sends Scott a video of the man being beat up in the opening scenes of the movie, with the message "Sorry". That man turns out to be Scott's husband (they both wore wedding rings) who is still in a coma at the hospital. Cal throws away his phone, before joining hands and boarding a train with Olivier, severing his last remaining link to the gang and his old life.

Cast

* Wayne Virgo as Cal * Marc Laurent as Olivier * Alice Payne as Nessa * Tom Bott as Jonno * Garry Summers as Scott * Bernie Hodges as Will * Christian Martin as David * Louise Fearnside as Dayna * Lewis Alexander as Souljah *

Oliver Park Oliver Park (born 13 April 1986) is a British horror writer and director. He is best known for his 2015/2016 short horror ''Vicious,'' voted as one of the best short horror films ever made by Buzzfeed. He then went onto make his second short hor ...

as Gang Member 1

Release

''Shank'' was released on 14 April 2009 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It was released in the United States in May 2009 at the

Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. The DVD release was on 8 December 2009.

Critical reception

, the film holds a 60% approval rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on five reviews with an average rating of 5.9 out of 10.

Sequel

The film was followed by a sequel, ''

Cal Cal or CAL may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Cal'' (novel), a 1983 novel by Bernard MacLaverty * "Cal" (short story), a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov * ''Cal'' (1984 film), an Irish drama starring John Lynch and Helen Mir ...

'', in 2013.

Awards

International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival -Won, Audience Awards 2009 * Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival- Won, Emerging Talent in

(Simon Pearce) 2009

References

External links

* * * * * {{YouTube, 4OXO4ZD3OAM, Official trailer for ''Cal'' 2009 films 2009 drama films Black British cinema Black British mass media Black British films British drama films British LGBT-related films Films set in Bristol 2000s French-language films 2009 LGBT-related films 2000s English-language films 2000s British films