Marching Powder

REVIEW:

Some movies are bad, but at least they have the decency to be entertaining in their failure. Marching Powder, directed by Nick Love and starring Danny Dyer, isn’t one of them. That’s an hour and a half of my life I’m never getting back! This so-called comedy attempts to channel the energy of Football Factory and The Business, but instead, it stumbles into a pit of mindless vulgarity, recycled gags, and a plot so non-existent that I spent more time checking my watch than actually watching the film.

I’ve never considered walking out of a movie halfway through, but this one tested my patience to its absolute limit. At multiple points, I caught myself hoping it would end, only to realise there was still an agonising amount of time left. Now, Nick Love has never been a director known for making great films, but at least his past work had some level of entertainment value. Marching Powder, however, is an absolute chore to sit through, with nothing to latch onto except an endless stream of tired, juvenile humour.

Now, I’m not one to be easily offended, but the film’s obsession with the C-word is excessive to the point of absurdity. It’s not just sprinkled in for comedic effect; it’s hurled at the audience relentlessly, making for an awkward and tiresome experience. Shock value can work in the right context, but here, it feels like a desperate attempt to mask the lack of any real humour. Instead of crafting a clever, character-driven comedy, the film relies on crass dialogue and lazy stereotypes to get through its runtime.

What’s most frustrating is that Marching Powder had the potential to be something more. Beneath the surface, there are hints of weighty themes—drug addiction, mental illness, football hooliganism—that could have added depth to Danny Dyer’s character as he tries to rebuild his life. A well-balanced script could have blended these darker elements with comedy in a meaningful way. Instead, the film does absolutely nothing with them. These themes are introduced and then promptly forgotten, leaving behind a hollow, pointless story that goes nowhere.

As if the awful humour and lack of substance weren’t bad enough, the action sequences are shockingly poor. The fight scenes are a mess—badly edited, shot with ridiculous shaky cam, and filled with punches that look completely unrealistic. There’s no impact, no weight to the brawls, making them more laughable than intense. For a movie that dips into the world of football hooliganism, you’d at least expect some brutal, well-choreographed scraps, but instead, it’s just a blurry, unconvincing mess.

The only saving grace? A couple of chuckles. That’s it. In a film packed with jokes, the hit-to-miss ratio is so low it’s embarrassing. And yet, even those few moments of laughter weren’t enough to justify the time I wasted. The humour is aggressively British, which might work for some audiences, but for me, it was just another reminder of how much better British comedy can be. If this is meant to represent our sense of humour, I can only apologise to the rest of the world—we are better than this.

I suppose the only silver lining is that I didn’t actually pay to see this. Luckily, I got the tickets for free, but even then, I feel like I wasted them. I could have saved them for literally any other movie and walked away with a better experience. If I had paid actual money, I’d be even more annoyed. Free or not, this is 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Would I ever rewatch this? Absolutely not. Marching Powder isn’t just a bad film; it’s an exhausting, frustrating slog that has nothing to say and no idea how to be funny. If you’re a die-hard Danny Dyer fan, maybe—maybe—you’ll find something to enjoy here. But for everyone else? Avoid it. You have better things to do with your time.