Mug

I Caught this short on the web and was blown away by it. not normally being a fan of "short films" i would actually describe it more like a short documentary film in the style of the Alan Clarke films of the 80's. the acting and the direction were spot on, almost like somebody had just captured all this going on for real. Apparently the writer/director made this short for less than £200?? I can't wait to see what he will do with more money.

It also put me in mind of the french crime films of the 70's (le Samurai etc)where very little dialogue is said but everything is conveyed in the eyes and the actions of the characters

So all in all highly recommended.

The main selling point to this short film is that the score uses the music of Matt Johnson ( AKA The The ) as its soundtrack one of the most under rated British musicians of the late 20th Century . If you want doom , gloom and articulate adjectives on alienation The The is the soundtrack for you , music that makes Pink Floyd and Nirvana sound like The Spice Girls in comparison and which probably contributed to Matt remaining as very much a cult artist . Ironically enough despite singing about emotional and social devastation his fan base is almost entirely composed of the middle class . So much for being able to relate to doom and gloom eh ?

Regardless of this I was very interested in what tunes would be used . Perhaps the shockingly poignant Red Cinders In The Sand or the angry Absolute Liberation or the live version of Another Boy Drowning or a dozen other appropriate songs . Unfortunately the score used comes from Film Music a very limited and hard to find release and I can't help thinking the reason it's hard to find might say something about the quality of the music . I have the music on a bootleg CD and I'm thankful I didn't have to spend a single penny on it

As for the story itself I'm completely perplexed as to the high rating . Five people have given MUG an average user rating of 9.6 which leads to believe all these voters have either worked on MUG or it's the only short film they have seen . The narrative follows a mugger going about his work and considering the shockingly high rating I was expecting more from Gerard Johnson's short film - Much much more but it doesn't deliver any type of smart ending . I had thought perhaps the mugger might have stolen a woman's handbag run in to a quiet dark alley where he's accosted by a bunch of skin heads who upon seeing the handbag jump to the conclusion that he's a homosexual and proceed to give him a bloody good kicking , but we're not even treated to this slightly predictable though painfully ironic ending as the story just fizzles out and led me to whine " Is that it ? "

In the summer of 2005 I saw the Homegrown Hollywood series of short films on BBC and must have seen over a hundred shorts . If MUG had been broadcast alongside them I wouldn't have said it was one of the worst but by the same token it wouldn't have stood alongside Brendan Muldowney's shockingly effective masterpiece THE TEN STEPS or the disturbing VIRUS or the quirky and amusing ARTHUR'S AMAZING THINGS as great examples of short film making . MUG is a film that can easily be found on the internet and is available at the official The The website for download and hopefully people can take the opportunity to watch it and then give it a far more appropriate rating on this page

This short depicts the world of the London mugger and let's be honest, this was always going to be a dark one. The film demonstrates how you would always be looking over your shoulder, yet always on the look out for your next hit... and this has been represented beautifully both in terms of content, and also soundtrack. I found this to be a real insight in to a miserable world few of us will ever experience, at least from the muggers perspective. So the film basically moves on with the mugger unknowingly stealing somebody else's "swag" that in fact has no real value to anybody else other than it's owner? Surely you would never expect a woman to fight so desperately to keep hold of her purse? An apt, dark conclusion to a first class piece of film.