Small Time

Shane Meadows' assured directorial feature debut is set in an anonymous Nottingham suburb where a group of low-level criminals - led by Jumbo and including Malc, Willy and Bets - scrape a living by petty thieving. Their latest haul, a few crates of dog food, doesn't interest their fence Lenny, but he does offer them a money-making scam. Also involved are Ruby and Kate, Jumbo and Malc's girlfriends, but Kate wants out and also wants the abused Ruby to come with her. Will Malc's loyalty lie with Kate or the gang?, Three small-time hoods are sent off into the desert to deliver a supply of drugs to a distributor and get the distributor's cash. Only the place of the transaction and the amounts involved are set. They do not know exactly when their counterparts will be sent by the distributor. In the meantime, they try to kill time in the corrugated shed they find at the site. They drink beer, quarrel, and, in a truly self-destructive mode, use their cellular phone to arrange for some prostitutes to entertain them. In the course of their liaison with the prostitutes, they use up a fair amount of the drug supply they were to deliver. Will they be lucky enough, or ingenious enough to survive their own stupidity and the wrath of their bosses?.