This Is England

Set in 1983, against the aftermath of the Falklands War, the film introduces us to eleven-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), whose soldier father was killed in the conflict. Living with his mother and trying to deal with his grief and loss, Shaun has become an angry youngster, quick to use his fists when teased by schoolmates who taunt, bully and pick fights with him. It is not long before he falls in with a gang of older boys - and girls. They act as a kind of surrogate family and protect him from being picked on. There's really nothing to worry about here. But suddenly, Shaun's world receives another jolt, like an earthquake. Combo (Stephen Graham), who has recently been released from jail, strides into Shaun's life and turns it upside down. Aggressive, confident, articulate and much smarter than Shaun's newfound friends, Combo is also a skinhead. Angry with the world, he is a member of the National Front, totally at loggerheads with the new, multiracial England. What follows is Shaun's "education" at the hands of this charismatic and brutal man who believes the country is going to hell in a handbasket.