'Gone Too Far' Film Review and Debate

Film Review

Witty, whimsical and utterly wondrous. The first time script-writer, Bola Agbaje, deserves a high praise for her satirical ‘fish out of water’ comedy drama. The film explores unconventional themes, reflecting interesting stereotypes and different ethnic communities. The most iconic aspect of ‘Gone Too Far’ is the fact that violence is explored as a minimal, which is typically unconventional in films when exploring the black community.

Not only were the themes iconic to the black community but to all ethnic backgrounds through personal identification with particular themes such as friendship and betrayal. In a Q&A with Agbaje at the Southbank BFI, she mentioned her motives for writing this script and how she was personally able to identify with a white protagonist in other films, therefore having a black protagonist or any other ethnic minority, should not stray away from this. Building on stereotypes axiomatically creates humour, therefore the witty way in which Agbaje was able to communicate the racial stereotypes tastefully, made the film furthermore interesting.

Due to the targeted audience being youths, the inclusion of colloquialisms and stereotypical dress sense causes the audience to identify with characters, especially the protagonist Yemi (Malachi Kirby), who contrasts completely to brother Iku (O.C. Ukeje). The cross-cultural merging reveals the identity of the West Indian ‘socks and sandals’ wearer with the Peckham ‘socks and Nikes’ wearer. The contrast creates a whimsical, comical aspect, whilst more importantly exploring the cultural differences. Bola Agbaje’s portrayal of her characters birthed a mirror for audience members and placed the most important roles in the hands off a marginalised group. 

"This house believes that films featuring ethnic minorities should only be produced by those who have the ethnic identity being represented."

I disagree with the motion that the producer should strictly be the same ethnic minority in order to perfectly portray the theme. I think what you have to take into consideration is external factors and more particularly how well you are aware of situations in order to portray them from a first hand perspective. I think certain individuals are able to understand things better than others despite their race or the colour of their skin, in perspective the main thing that matters is how much you, yourself, are connected to the issue as an individual. The exploration of ethnic minorities is something that potentially needs to be reflected on screen, therefore if the producer was of the same ethnicity then potentially they may be able to more validly reflect themselves within the screen, however I do not think that this is always the case as individuals are able to learn from their surroundings and therefore pick up on aspects of the marginalised group to therefore understand themselves. 

Furthermore, I think it is definitely important to reflect ethnic minorities and I think if a highly acclaimed white film producer wanted to produce a film about the Asian community I see this as a potentially positive thing rather than negative as the amount of recognition the film would get would be higher than that of an unknown director. I think it is important that any producer should be able to produce what they feel they can reflect best and create best, therefore it should not be down to their race, if this was the case then this idea of discrimination would never end and the constant cycle of groups staying separated will continue. The dichotomy between races needs to end and the only way to do this is understand every minority group in whatever way suits the individual.

Although I do agree that the only way to truly understand a race or ethnic minority group is to be part of it, I think it becomes more of an issue of emotional attachment to the film and although I think it is definitely important for the producer to be connected with the film, it is also important to have a little bit of a detachment to therefore have a new outlook on the situation, therefore if a white producer was to understand the situation of a particular ethnic minority and then produce a film whilst constantly having feedback from that group, it would be more powerful than that of the actual individual creating this as it becomes something individual to solely them. A good example of this, unrelated to ethnic groups, is the portrayal of Heath Ledger's Joker. Although he was an actor and not a producer this example is able to reflect the same idea as Ledger was able to put himself into the position of a psychopath and essentially get into a role which is completely unconventional to him, therefore a producer who is of a complete different race could essentially surround himself within the ethnic group, understanding the essential struggles and therefore is able to empathise from a third person perspective.