LIKE MOST VISIONS OF A DYSTOPIAN future, the world created in Shank is an ugly, alienating place. It’s 2015 and rising unemployment has forced disaffected youth to start dressing like extras from Mad Max.
At the heart of this is Junior (Williams-Stirling), a member of the Paper Chaserz gang who witnesses the murder of his brother and has to decide between revenge or staying true to a strangely misplaced moral code that he’s cultivated against a world of thuggery and intimidation.
So far, so absorbing. You’ll care less though: Ali’s music video background means that it’s all style over substance, the dialogue’s risible and the film looks like it was informed by
a generation raised on Grand Theft Auto for any sort of cinematic aesthetic. If this is the future of film then we’re all doomed.