Schemers

Schemers starts with a young man being chased down a road while his heavy Scottish accent tells us in voiceover how he got to this place in his life. It sounds familiar doesn't it, reminiscent of another famous slice of Scottish cinema. It's a bad way to start a film though, because it invites comparisons and comparisons aren't good unless you can live up to them. 

It's 1982 in Dundee, a city with a chip on it's shoulder because it's not Edinburgh. Times are tight and for wannabe footballer Davie (Conor Berry) they're about to get tighter when a run in with a love rival leaves both his leg and his dreams shattered. His only source of income is gambling but even a plum like Davie knows there's no happy ending there. Shona (Tara Lee), the nurse that helps him heal, catches his eye and in an effort to woo her he sows seeds of a career in music that will give him and his friends Scot and John some mighty highs and some epic lows.

It's ok. It's alright. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. These are a few ways to describe Schemers. It passes the time, you'll laugh once or twice, you'll enjoy the tunes, you'll smile at the knowing nods towards the future and at the incomprehensible accents and on the way home you'll realise than you are struggling to remember anything about it. For a couple of reasons. Firstly because none of it makes sense all at. Our leads go from Dundee zeroes to music management heroes in the space of a montage and the film never gives us a sense of how or why and as such none of it feels believable in the least and at the end when you (not a spoiler) find out its based on a true story you get the sense a LOT has been left out to protect involved parties. As such it becomes inconsequential and edgeless.

And it's annoying because there's the seeds of something good here. At a time when the whole of the UK is in danger off tipping off the edge of a huge recession abyss this could stand as a warning about returning to the past but it's a theme that's barely worked on with the film instead wasting time on a love story that goes nowhere with a character, Shona, who could have been lifted out of the story without effecting it in the slightest. Tara Lee, an Irish actress who you'll remember from A Date For Mad Mary deserves better than being the eye candy in a story about boys being boys and it's here we come to the film's main issue. It's main characters are....well... to be blunt, they are arseholes. Davie's a selfish prick, John is a selfish prick and Scot, you can guess what he is. There's no reason anyone would be friends with them, be attracted to them, have anything to do with them at all and it leaves us wondering, once again, how their plan could ever work.

Conor Berry as Davie is one to keep an eye on though. In his debut role he exudes confidence far beyond his years or experience. It's a pity the rest of the film falls short.

Schemers is in cinemas now.