BANK OF DAVE**

BANK OF DAVE is a harmless and likeable bit of rom-com slash socialist agitation. Naturally, its ham-fisted politics aren't entirely sympathetic to those of us at the Blog formerly known as Movie Reviews for Greedy Capitalist Bastards. But the film managed to tap into my nostalgia for Def Leppard so it's all good.  The two stars here are for each of the hit songs I found myself joyously singing along to at the end of the film.

Roy Kinnear plays Dave - a real-life successful Northern businessman who decides to step in and make small loans to his local community with the Global Financial Crisis sees credit tighten up.  He's such a good egg that he donates all the profits to charity.  The endeavour is so successful at boosting his local community that he decides to become a proper bank - the Bank of Dave - and hires a young lawyer (Joel Fry) to help him make the application.  But here's where it gets pantomime-y - because every folk hero needs a big bad nasty evil overlord. Think Robin of Sherwood and King John.

So we have Hugh Bonneville and various others play heartless profit-hungry oligarchs trying to keep humble Dave out of the banking industry by trumping up charges of loan sharking against him and then demanding an outsized cash deposit before he can go into business. Which is where the inevitable BLUES BROTHERS- style  final concert comes in featuring our favourite Northern metal band. There's also an entirely tacked on and inevitable romance between the lawyer and Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynever.

The dialogue is painful, the characters drawn with a blunt pencil, the story is hokey and this is really just pisspoor except for the fact that I did rather enjoy the courtroom scene and of course, the aforementioned Leppard reunion.  So fair play.  

BANK OF DAVE is streaming on Netflix and has a running time of 107 minutes.

BELIEVE

BELIEVE is a shamelessly earnest and indulgent underdog sports story starring Brian Cox as the legendary real life manager of Manchester United. The script from Massimiliano Durante and Carmelo Pennisi imagines what would have happened if Busby had decided to coach a young bunch of working class kids in a local tournament, just out of love of the game and the memory of his young players so tragically killed in the Munich air crash.  

Although much of the film is derivative (working class lads up against posh boys - a mum who doesn't want her kid to play - the conflict between school and sport) I really admire the director David Scheinmann (THE WEST WITTERING AFFAIR) for going into some of the darker material. Although done in almost mocking, caricatured manner, this is a film that shows the class divisions in England, with Georgie (Jack Smith) trying to pass an exam to get into a grammar school rightly seen as potentially life-changing.  I also liked the sentimental but elegantly handled way in which the Munich air crash is handled in a film that is, after all, a PG rated drama. 

Brian Cox is predictably great as Busby but I was surprised at Toby Jones' comic facility and Natasha McElhone's northern accent. But the real star is Jack Smith as the star player Georgie who handles the tough emotional stuff as well as being a good lippy kid.  Could've done without the added contrived drama of a last minute flat tire though.

BELIEVE was released last year in Austria and is currently on release in the UK.