Popular reviews

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  Review by warren ★★★★★

  I've seen a fair few films in my time but hands down I've never personally related to a film more than this gem right now. Some of the conversations Tony has with his mum, I've had in real life with my mine. It's a great feeling to be represented but also makes you unequivocally uncomfortable at some of the shit the characters have to put up with.

  It's a sweet as fuck coming of age and reactionary portrayal of black Britons. Extremely grim but super honest documentation of
  youth and being caught in between two words. Honestly loved every single minute of it and the discussions of identity, police, racism and black consciousness was insightful. A product of it's time but some of the issues and arguments still ring true today. It's angry piece of filmmaking, but it's sincere.

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  Review by Laurie Orla ★★★★

  'So what's wrong with bacon and eggs, fish and chips and Gary Glitter?'
  - I spat out a mouthful of coffee when I heard this line. Ah, the 1970's...

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  Review by williamfaeleith ★★★★

  Historically important, as the first British Black dramatic feature-length film, this is, despite some rough and ready dialogue and some ropey acting, a very powerful, gritty drama examining the life of Tony (Herbert Norville) a British-born Black teenager in the mid-70s, struggling to fit in between two different cultures.
  It feels like a Black version of an Alan Clarke film and indeed many of the teenagers in this film also appeared in Clarke's 'Scum' a few years later.
  A very realistic portrayal of teenage life in the mid-seventies in Britain and a very rare look at it from a Black social and political perspective.
  As director Horace Ové said, what he was trying to do was "to portray the experience of the Windrush generation, the kids who came with them and the kids born here."
  A lot of things have changed since the mid-seventies, but a lot of things have stayed the same.

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  Review by lily ☮︎ ★★★★ 1

  was scared for a moment there was a child in the bed

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★½

  'So what's wrong with bacon and eggs, fish and chips and Gary Glitter?'

  Ah you'll find out one day Tony...

  Horace Ové earned the distinction of making the first black feature film made in Britain with Pressure, which focuses on Tony (Herbert Norville) an educated black teenager caught between cultures. Born in Britain, he recognises more common ground with the white society around him than he does in either the traditional West Indian culture of his family or the black awareness of his politicised older brother, played by Oscar James. However, as Tony is rejected by employer after employer and witnesses first hand the harassment his black friends experience at the hands of the police and authorities, he begins to…

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  Review by Karl ★★★½ 8

  "Pressure" is noted as the first Black-directed feature-length film in the United Kingdom. It portrays a Trinidadian family who are part of the wave of Caribbean immigrants known as the "Windrush generation". Many Islanders came to the UK, USA and Canada after World War 2.

  Tony was born and bred in London. When we are introduced to him he is enjoying an English breakfast as his brother (born in Trinidad) teases him how white it is. Tony considers himself as British as anyone else. He's a bright young man, who you would think anyone would want to hire. Were it not for being Black, Tony would go far. His ambitions are crushed with every rejection. It's painful to see and…

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  Review by Steven Sheehan ★★★★★ 2

  After the discussion about race at the recent Oscar's the British film industry would do just as well to look at itself. Looking back across the decades, films relating to black culture and the community are extremely thin on the ground. At the very least these types of films are being made in America but over here, the message continues to be there is no audience for it.

  So that makes Pressure a hard to find (YouTube thankfully) gem that covers a lot of complex ground in a couple of hours. Horace Ove directed the first Black feature film in this country, focusing less on racism and more on the dynamics felt between first and second generation immigrant families. A…

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  Review by jourdain searles

  this movie sounds like my grandmother.

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  Review by Mister All Sunday ★★★★★

  Should I be surprised that such a pro-black film only has 152 views on Letterboxd? Should I be surprised that a film that features long sequences of militant black revolutionaries giving speeches denouncing racist institutions is so hard to find legally in the U.S.? Should I be surprised that this and so many other far left black films never get talked about?
  No.
  Am I surprised?
  Only at how amazing this film is.

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  Review by Kurdt ★★★★½

  Widely considered the first Black British feature film, Pressure follows Anthony, a son of immigrants who’s fresh out of school, looking for work in London and trying to find his place in the world. But he’s at odds with his family, with parents who don’t seem to understand the racial prejudice he's facing in the UK, while at the same time he isn’t as militant and anti-establishment as his brother Colin, one of the leaders of the local Black Panther movement who thinks Anthony is “too English” (read: not Black enough) and not as in touch with his Trinidadian roots. Shot in a gritty social-realist style, with at times wobbly acting, it’s still an excellent film about the loneliness of…

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  Review by gibson8 ★★★½ 5

  Tony: I just can't believe that all white people are bad!'.

  Tony: 'White people for some reason or other, don't realise that they are in the same position like us'.

  Who gets the credit for the transformative improvement in race relations in the UK?

  Tony would be aware of, and celebrate the progress made in the workforce, society and law and order.

  None of the events depicted in Ove's debut would occur now.

  If police do anything remotely dodgy someone is there to stream it, and the online community play judge and jury before the next meme hits their stream.

  BLM would consider Tony's egalitarian view on race to be fascist in his inclusion of white and black under the…

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  Review by jourdain searles

  This film contains the most Caribbean mother ever put to screen.