Boston Kickout Review – John Simm and Andrew Lincoln are among the 90s teenagers roaming around Stevenage | film

IIt can be fascinating to see the early work of well-known actors, and in this British drama from 1995, we see John Simm (Life on Mars), Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead), and Mark Warren (Hustle), all of whom show early promise as young people in their late teens trying to figure out what to do with their lives. There’s also a sad feeling watching actors who had as much potential but didn’t enjoy the same success.

What really stands out about Boston Kickout is the depiction of Stevenage in Hertfordshire; The kind of in-between place that is rarely depicted in British cinema and that has neither the richness of the home counties nor the gritty ‘reality’ of the north of England. But here Stevenage feels wonderfully real. These men don’t live in slums, but no one has a mansion either. It captures with great subtlety the way this kind of place in the ’90s felt limited to four teenagers. It’s not a million miles away from the kind of environment depicted in The Inbetweeners, but rather than the boredom and ignorance that lead to a sitcom, their choices, as they experience it, are: violence, escape, drugs, and (very young, to the first person they meet) marriage.

Most often, the boys are from the lower middle class, but they are fascinated by what they see as the authenticity and excitement of deviant behavior. It’s clearly Lincoln’s relatively affable character who’s headed for broader horizons, while Warren’s thuggish character is headed to prison one way or another, while the others are caught somewhere in between the two extremes. None of the characters are entirely engaging, but they all seem real. In fact, there’s not much of a plot: the lads wander around Stevenage, waiting for their A-level results, mostly drinking and trying to pick up girls. A near-contemporary of Trainspotting and Lock and Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, it makes sense that Boston Kickout in the final act overplays its power a bit.