Cinema Review: Payback Season

By Dominic Antill

Payback Season takes you on a tepid and laborious ride through the life of football’s next big thing with his supposedly dodgy council estate past catching up with him. 

Adam Deacon (Jerome Davis) is about as convincing a footballer as Danny Dyer is being, well, any character he attempts to play. 

The trouble is with films of this ilk is that they ride shamelessly off the back of street/urban glamour. 

Rather than of course trying to depict the hardships of living in urban squalor the film does its best to stereotype any stereotype you could think of in the local boy hits the big time story.

Any attempt at keeping it real comes with the incessant use of bruv and fam which I can guarantee are used more or less in every sentence. 

This is not a film about a supposed footballer who has lost his way, more Deacon et al attempting to convince themselves that despite their relative success, they still acknowledge where they came from. 

Indeed, if you’re an aspiring footballer don’t watch this, there isn’t a curfew in sight and the closest thing you see to football is some keepy-uppy, which Deacon doesn’t actually do.  

Adam Deacon of course who has just won a Rising Star BAFTA Award is essentially making the acceptance speech he wished he could have made, with guns, women and dub step playing in the background. 

You may argue that this is not actually a film at all; Danny Donnelly’s directorial debut relies far too heavily on his musical roots and hence it sounds, plays and has as much depth as a music video. 

With the endless drubbing beat comes an excruciatingly moronic plot that essentially runs out of ideas all of about 30 minutes into it. 

David Ajala (Baron) plays the villainous posse leader who somehow manages to convince (perhaps that’s because he doesn’t do an entirely bad job here) Deacon that he has to pay him lots of money to stop the threats of violence. 

Nichola Burley (Lisa) plays Deacon’s supposed fancy and is incredibly wooden. The scene where she finally gives in to Deacon’s street charm is probably the worst of the lot.

 After standing her up, for what seemed like hours, Deacon offers her…an omelette, at his flat – which will offend all feminists (or anyone with a brain) as of course it works. 

A brief cameo from Sir Geoff Hurst (Andy), because this is a football film apparently, adds absolutely nothing to a film that completely forgets what it was going to be about. 

A cliché that is unintentionally amusing at its worst – this doesn’t deliver on any level.

Avoid unless you’re the type that enjoys watching rubbish films only to make fun of how poor it really can be in the world of cinema.