Jazzie Zonzolo and Adam Deacon in Sumotherhood

SUMOTHERHOOD
Directed by Adam Deacon
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

SUMOTHERHOOD, Adam Deacon’s gangster comedy, has an opening scene that when put into context of the writer, director and lead’s off-screen life is worth pondering.

Riko (Deacon) and his sidekick Kane (Jazzie Zonzolo) are involved in a shady deal in the back of a van when Riko spots a woman he takes a fancy to.

He jumps out and tries to use fast talking to find out her phone number. When this doesn’t work, he pulls out a sword.

This may seem like a strange scene to begin a film with, one with a very odd sense of humour, if one can be found at all. But in 2016, Adam was arrested after being found to be in a street carrying a machete. He was found not guilty on two counts, ill-health meaning he was not responsible for his behaviour.

Deacon seems to have relived this episode in his new film and perhaps offers an explanation of how it felt to him at the time.

It is a strange introduction into a London crime comedy.

Wide boys Riko and Kane are a pair of nonsense-speaking lads who owe £15,000 to a short-tempered drug dealer. How can they raise the cash in seven days?

From trying to mug a grime star in a club loo to holding up a bank, they find themselves accidentally being considered to be pretty good by an East London mob and recruited into a world they really don’t belong in.

Cameos galore break the fourth wall – a game of oh my, they got so-and-so to appear! – and you can play a solid game of spot the EastEnders legend.

Kentish Town’s own Vas Blackwood has a meaty role as the pained copper desperate to make some big-time arrests. He brings laughs to every scene he appears in, while Ed Sheeran pops up in a short skit, playing a crack cocaine addict.

But the best of the lot is a brief appearance by Jeremy Corbyn, who appears while a bank heist is going on, and has a moment to explain how the Conservative government is ultimately responsible.

At times exhausting through the sheer on-screen toing and froing, the wobbly plot is held up by the great performances. And the script is worth deconstructing: riddled with contemporary cockney slang, it would offer a linguist a study of the evolution of a specific patois that is made up of rapid-fire lyricism.