Directed by Shane Meadows from auto-biographical memories of his childhood, this bleakly realistic portrait of a young boy taken in by the skinhead subculture of the early Thatcher era, is a difficult and politically charged examination of England at a time when young men and women had little to idolize except punk rock and anarchy. First timer Thomas Turgoose plays Shaun, a lonely adolescent boy whose father has recently died in the Falkland’s, so desperate for an emotional contact, he takes up with the ska-influenced older skinheads of his town, only to become disillusioned when the non-racist group splits towards the neo-nazi’s with the release of a former member from prison. Meadows uses poor, rural sections of Nottingham for a gritty, realistic background, and the naturalistic performances of the relatively unknown cast, especially Turgoose and Stephen Graham as the nazi influenced new leader of the group, make this unsettling depiction of a specific subculture in a troubled time an especially hard hitting social critique.