Review: Its punk style overwhelms its substance, but 'Us and Them' does have star-in-the-making Jack Roth

Review: Its punk style overwhelms its substance, but ‘Us and Them’ does have star-in-the-making Jack Roth

By Noel Murray

March 15, 2018 1:10 PM PT

Writer-director-editor Joseph Martin’s edgy crime dramedy “Us and Them” has something to say, but it says it with perhaps too much pizzazz. Part of a long tradition of incendiary, punk-influenced British social satires, the picture will undoubtedly resonate with some politically engaged filmgoers, though it’s more a showcase for rising star Jack Roth than a resounding triumph for Martin.

Roth plays Danny, a working-class kid who ropes his buddies into an act of extreme civil disobedience. They invade the home of a posh capitalist and spend several hours threatening his family, on camera, as a warning to the rich that ordinary British citizens are fed up.

Martin breaks the story into chapters and jumps around in time to provide backstory and footnotes to the moments of eruptive violence. He sets all this to a soundtrack that veers from classical music to the Damned.

The gimmicky structure and style is more distracting than effective, and it mostly fails to compensate for an underdeveloped plot. Martin’s stealing from the right filmmakers — including Guy Ritchie, Stanley Kubrick, Mike Leigh, Danny Boyle and Ben Wheatley — but lacks their command.

What he does have is Roth, who’s absolutely riveting, especially once Danny begins to realize that not only has he failed to think through his plan but that he’s also allowed his rage to be exploited. Danny’s more of an idea than a character, but like his father, Tim, Roth already shows a knack for humanizing a thesis statement.

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