Director – Dave Mclean – 2019 – UK – Cert. 15 – 91m
**1/2
A local Dundee lad and his two mates get into the promotions end of the music industry and find themselves dealing with gangsters – in cinemas from Friday, September 25th
Dundee lad Davie (Conor Berry) arouses the ire of a man who catches Davie sleeping with the man’s girlfriend. Cue a couple of on foot chase sequences and, subsequently, Davie’s running into the guy at a local football game where the guy breaks Davie’s knee, putting his leg in plaster and his football career in limbo.
In hospital, Davie becomes smitten with student nurse charged with his care Shona (Tara Lee) and running into her later at a dancing venue asks her out. In the process, he talks himself up as a promoter of music gigs, so has to make good on that promise if the date with Shona is to happen. She’s keen on Simple Minds, so that’s the first act he books.
So he enlists his two mates – the happy-go-lucky Scot (Sean Connor) who has his finger in various dodgy and likely illegal dealings and the more responsible (and married) John (Grant Robert Keelan). As the trio start booking various up and coming bands of the day, including The Skids, The Vapours and XTC, it quickly becomes obvious that all Dundee’s music venues are controlled by local gangsters, so to make the dream a reality the three are going to have to deal with the likes of Fergie (Alastair Thomson Mills), a legendary local thug of violent repute.
The character and story are based on autobiographical details from the director’s personal history, but although it rattles along at a good pace with a strong soundtrack and the characters are likeable enough, the film fails to make much of a lasting impression. It never comes close to that indie gem about a Belfast music promoter Good Vibrations (Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn, 2013) where the characters are legendary and the bands unforgettable.
The bands here are simply whoever Davie can get and he doesn’t seem to care about them in terms of music or any cultural significance they might have. Where Shona is impressed that John Peel likes Simple Minds, you wonder if Davie has the slightest idea who he is or they are. By the time he’s upped his game to book metal act Iron Maiden in a much bigger venue, unless you’re a Maiden fan you’re unlikely to care.
The film is not however without charm, and achieves occasional affecting observations, such as the scene when as he prepares to leave town for London, both his mum and his dad separately, in succession and unbeknown to each other, press £20 in notes into his hand. And it will no doubt garner much local aplomb for managing to put Dundee on the big screen, a feat for which it is to be congratulated.
All the ingredients are there for something very special: it’s a shame the film never really takes off.
Schemers is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 25th.
Trailer: