VS is a movie about the UK rap battle scene, directed by Ed Lilly, co-written by him and Daniel Hayes. It may be a bit rough around the edges, and rough everywhere else as well, but it also has real urgency and storytelling punch, and the contests themselves are tremendously witty, inventive and exciting. If you’ve ever yearned for more literate film scripts, more intelligent verbal pyrotechnics, well … here you go. It’s about a young white rapper who has issues with his mother, and naturally it may owe something to Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile from 2003, starring Eminem, but I enjoyed this more. It is much less freighted with celebrity self-consciousness.
Adam (Connor Swindells) is a young man who was put into foster care as an infant by his teenage mum. He is always getting in trouble because of his explosive bad temper, and now his harassed case-worker, Terry (Nicholas Pinnock), gets him billeted with a new carer, Fiona (a gentle and sympathetic performance from Ruth Sheen). But this is in Southend, where he knows his mum, Lisa (Emily Taaffe), is working as a hairdresser.
Lonely Adam finds himself falling for Makayla (Fola Evans-Akingbola), who introduces him to the rap battle scene. It turns out Adam is a natural: all his rage and alienation are alchemised into brilliant rhymes. He knows how to stand his ground when his opponent gets right in his face with the nastiest jeers. But his case workers are worried. Is this a miracle? All his anger magically transformed into something non-violent and creative? Or is Adam developing a dangerous new addiction to confrontation that will keep the violence alive in his heart when it should be dying away? Everything comes to a head when his rap contests appear alongside confrontations with his mum, and his head-butting rage becomes ever more painful.
A movie with flair and force.