Cubs

A young man wants to join an inner-city gang and waits to be selected by leader Karl. When he is picked though he finds out that the initiation into the gang is a violent blood sport – the hunting of an inner city fox.This short film won the BBC3 award for best new filmmaker 2006 and it is indeed an enjoyable and impressive short. The plot deals mostly with an urban fox hunt and is quite exciting and difficult to stomach at the same time. Narrative wise the action and the basic, unexpanded scenario is enough to hold the interest but outside of that the point of it was lost on me somewhat – was it a condemnation of inner-city violence or was it a condemnation of fox hunting with the film forcing those that support the hunts to do so when it is carried out by hoodies. It isn't clear which of these (or another) it is trying ot do but it does make you think about it yourself which is a good thing.The cast features a good but typical turn from Walters (who is putting himself around well) but I felt more could have been done with the main character Ben played by Eden. As the material doesn't have time for depth, he is left with simple emotions to play out; he does it well enough but I did want more. Harper's direction is good and he has uses real locations well and made this world feel convincing. Overall then an engaging and difficult short film that is not perfect but is interesting for what it does do.