Ready for the rapture, guv’nor?

Screen shot of movie website

Screen shot of movie website

Felt obliged to translate the concept of “the rapture” into cockney rhyming slang, for this one, but “screen capture” didn’t really seem quite authentic enough.

There’s a new movie about East End gangs fighting to get the spear that pierced the side of christ, so they can unite it with the holy grail and bring about the rapture, according to Libby Purves in the Times. No, really.

I have instantly cast it in my head. Ray Winstone – lovable cockney villain – and Vinny Jones – as unlovable cockney villain – must be the gang leaders. I bet there are dozens of actors from Only Fools and Horses and Minder who haven’t had a well-paid screen role for years. Half the cast of the Bill could go on without rehearsal. There could even be a cameo role for Dick van Dyke. Shane Ritchie would direct. He could contribute the deep knowledge of ancient Jewish texts that he gained by swimming in qabbalah water. So, it would be, like totally, authentic.

All my dreams turn to dust. There’s a website for this project. It writes the Rapture in a gold Quake font on a mainly black background. So, it looks like a gamers’ site. It’s not genuine rapture-ready nonsense. It’s using the Rapture as a fantasy plot ingredient, equally as credible as the myth that East End Kray-style villains were loveable cockney rogues rather than dangerous psychopaths.

On a cursory look, it seems pretty low budget, even engagingly amateurish. Martin Kemp is the only professional cockney so far identified as being in it. Indeed the press notices on its site are mainly references to the sort of local papers that put in a photo of a whole under-14 five-a-side football team, so their relatives will all buy a paper. It’s written by a Scottish politician’s son with what looks like a comically-bleached head of hair. It might even turn out to be quite entertaining. At least, if the film-makers are lucky, it might get picketed and condemned as an abomination by real rapture-ready folk and get loads of press coverage and make some serious money.

9 thoughts on “Ready for the rapture, guv’nor?

  1. Cor blimey, stroike me down wiv a feather. I spoke too soon. There are a whole host of professional cockneys in this. (I don’t watch lovable cockney tv so I missed the references.)

    Ray Winstone may not be in it but his daughter is. Plus the actor daughter of some other lovable tv cockney – from the Bill or something – along with the chap himself.

    Those old East -End family values hey? Those East-enders know how to look after their own.

    Firm but fair, those east end villains. They looked after each other in the East end in the old days. You could walk the East End without worrying about mugging, And they only nailed people’s heads to the floor when they really asked for it, by doing things like being cheeky to a lovable cockney villain’s mum. (And so on, ad nauseam…)

    (Yes, sarcasm.)

  2. Heather.

    Thank you for the anti english / cockney comments i.e ‘guv’nor’ – pathetic. A majority of us are or have cockney blood and appeciate small minded no nothing people like you. What’s with the ‘Scottish’ (raciest) polictian son remark. I like most enjoy and support the English film industry and it’s just a shame for racist unqualified people like Libby Purves comments mocking the english film industry without even seeing the film.

    David

    PS If indeed you are a writer which I doubt very much then you will know that comments which you send around come back around and bite you on your big fat ass ………….guv’nor !

  3. David, thank you for your comments.

    Did you go out of your way to find something to be offended at here? You appear to have completely missed the point of this posting and taken umbrage at what ever it was you imagined it said.

    Some points I think I should address while Heather is away:

    1 – Heather is English. Nothing in this posting was anti-English. Please re-read it to verify. This is an anti-religion / anti-rapture posting. If you are offended by the use of the term “guv’nor” then there is a whole raft of films you need to avoid watching.

    2 – By no stretch of the imagination do the majority of English people have “cockney blood” unless you mean its red and contains haemoglobin. You could equally say the majority of people have scouse or geordie blood. Your blood is not tied to a geographical area. Assuming you were being metaphorical, you are still wrong. While London may have a large population, there are sill more people in the UK who live outside London. The majority of English people are unlikely to have “cockney” ancestors.

    3 – Scottish is not a “race.” Saying a politician is Scottish is not racist, its a statement of fact. Calling someone Scottish is not derogatory unless you feel it is an insulting term. If that is the case then you may want to re-think your value structures. What Heather wrote didnt even criticise the Scottish politicians son, so what you took offence at is a bit lost to me.

    4 – Interestingly, you dont seem to have read what “Libby Purves” on the times wrote about this. For a start it was written by Bess Twiston-Davies on Libby Purves’ blog. It is not really mocking of the film unless this is what you have taken umbrage with:

    Apparently – this is where the story gets truly surreal – two rival East End gangs are locked in a race to get to the spear. The winning side must then match it with the Holy Grail in order to evoke the Rapture, or second coming of Jesus.

    If that is what offended you, then you really need to re-adjust your filters.

    5 – Since when did criticism of one (or more films) become the same as criticism of an entire industry? I think the Fiat Panda is a terrible car, but that is not an indictment of the car industry. I think the Nikon 55 – 200mm VR lens is abysmal but that isnt even a criticism of Nikon’s industry let alone the camera industry.

    6 – Why do you think Heather is a writer in anything other than the sense she wrote this post? If that is the only sense, she is self evidently a writer so what are you questioning? If it helps, she is a statistician. “Big fat ass” is an odd turn of phrase for an English person to use, but as you can see the rest of your statement is fairly accurate.

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