David Tennant at the press night for Marching Powder (March 2025)

25th: Marching Powder

SCORE: 0/10 GENRE: "Comedy" DIRECTOR: Nick Love

The top review of this in Letterboxd is literally the "day in the life of a true brexit geezer" copypasta, which really says everything about this film.

If you live in the UK, you know people like the protagonist Jack and you know what football hooligans are. If you know anything about me or my politics, you probably know why I hated every second of this film.

The film opens with a transphobic joke and it only gets worse from there. Jack doesn't change or grow throughout this entire film, because that would symbolise that the ethos of this film and its target audience is wrong. Jack is a despisable, frustrating man. He's a terrible husband, even worse father (leaves his kid home alone to OVERDOSE) and has the exact type of attitude to change that you'd expect from a film that looks like this. In any decent film, he'd be the villain. However, he does a single nice thing at the end, learns next to nothing, and that's enough to forgive him, says the court.

The film takes shots at everything you expect it to: trans people, queer people, millenials, vegans, "wokeness", you get the point. There's a joke about Andrew Tate in this film, but it ends up being a punchline about lesbians instead and he gets off lightly. The film puts up a facade of playing both sides, but it's very clearly exactly the type of film you think it is.

But above all, I think this film is irresponsible. It's partially the activity this film glorifies that led to the racist riots last year, and to have this film come out not even a year later is incredibly tone-deaf.

This is just sad.

Plot: Middle-aged Jack, arrested for drugs, strives in six weeks to repair marriage, curb bullying in-law, and guide stepbrother Kenny Boy.

Danny Dyer is a fun bloke. His “macho geezer” character stereotype works well for him, and has proven he can handle comedy really well, whether it’s a surreal cameo appearance on Last One Laughing doing an improv sketch on Harry Potter and throwing about lines like “alright, where’s this fucking Dumbledore then?” or “I’ll tongue ya!”, or showcasing his more endearing side in shows like Rivals, to even being brutally honest, vulnerable and genuinely down to earth on ITV’s The Assembly, where he was interviewed by a group of autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people – with no topic off-limits. Look, it could of course all be for the cameras, but it is always lovely to see celebrities act like normal people. That being said, his new movie Marching Powder is an absolute train wreck.

Every line of dialogue feels as if it’s been processed by ChatGPT going through every basic slang and swear word from the urban dictionary. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the word c*nt isn’t as funny as this movie thinks it is, or at least I believe it thinks it does with the number of times it’s said. I wonder why the producers didn’t consider reaching out to writer Irvine Welsh, who has a proven track record of taking on challenging subjects that are dark and slimy and tend to relate to drug abuse, such as Trainspotting or Filth (both with very good film adaptations no less). I understand that his prime style of writing is native Edinburgh dialect of the Scots, but I’m sure with his talents he could have broken into the “geezer” territory with ease. At the very least his characters would have had some level of layer to them, and a certain, if limited, moral code. For that is the other major issue of Marching Powder - all the characters a highly dislikable, and none of them learn anything from the beginning to end of the film. The story ends essentially where it began, with Danny Dyer’s character a cocaine-addicted, boozy, football-obsessed hooligan who’s a terrible father and husband. The most detestable factor is that of his wife Dani (played by Stephanie Leonidas) who for some reason keeps forgiving this lousy schmuck no matter what, resulting in a complete lack of growth.

Marching Powder lacks any real element of pathos, and instead keeps pushing the agenda of how charming Danny Dyer is, and that that charm allows him to do whatever he wants, get away with it and go back to the “football is life!” motto. It’s a highly frustrating and pointless film, and though Dyer is trying his best here, even riffing on the famous Trainspotting “choose life” monologue at the end, it’s mostly painful and embarrassing. Though I did crack a chuckle at the Jeremy Corbyn joke, I’ll give them that.

Overall score: 2/10

David, Katie and Paul discuss Back To The Future, Live Action Disney, Opus and Marching Powder. Available on all your regular podcast providers at filmpodcast.co.uk Continue reading Podcast: Back To The Future, Opus and Marching Powder

Comedy drama in which a man battles to save his marriage and avoid jail after being ordered by a court to put his days of brawling and drug misuse behind him.

Director(s) Nick Love

Production Year 2024

Release date 07/03/2025

Genre(s) Action, Comedy, Crime

Approx. running minutes 96m

Cast Stephanie Leonidas, Danny Dyer, Philippe Brenninkmeyer

Danny Dyer is a UK acting legend, he has a lot of movies to his name from B movies to TV series (Eastenders) Movies like “Severance” “The Football Factory” “Hooligan Factory” “Mean Machine” “Devils Playground” and the hilarious “Dog House”

From the director of THE FOOTBALL FACTORY and THE SWEENEY comes a “romantic comedy” aboutaddiction, violence and happy endings