This Is England is set in early Eighties England; a world of Roland Rat, aerobics, 'Blockbusters', Thatcher, the Falklands crisis, racial unease, and skinheads. Very difficult source material, to say the least.

Drawing heavily from his own experiences growing up, director Shane Meadows has created a portrait of an often-overlooked period in cultural history.

Against the backdrop of the skinhead scene in a deadbeat coastal town, we witness this traumatic rite of passage, both on a cultural and personal level, through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy, Shaun.

It's an exemplary piece of work beautifully encapsulating the feelings of the eighties.

The avarice of that time (both political and economic) is juxtaposed against the heightened sense of revolt against a Thatcherite government that truly didn't seem to care about anyone who wasn't on the gravy train.

The script is razor sharp and the acting commendable, mostly by a largely unknown cast.

Go and see it for yourself (especially if you were growing up during the Eighties), it's evocative of the time and harks back to a pre-technological age of innocence. All very nostalgic.

You'll be rewarded with a superb soundtrack (skinheads were some of the first people to appreciate roots reggae, reggae and ska outside of Jamaica, as well as being avid followers of soul), laughter, sadness and at times real, palpable, tension.

Stephen Graham is predictably excellent as the menacing Combo, fresh from prison, tooled up and eager to recruit for the National Front.

Turgoose is also superb as the wide-eyed and impressionable Shaun, angry about his father's demise in the Falklands and keen to belong to a familial gang. Meadows fans will recognise Andrew Shim from 1999's A Room For Romeo Brass as Milky - the only Jamaican in the gang.

Occasionally over stylised but always entertaining, those seeking the powerful narrative of Meadows' earlier work Dead Man Shoes will be slightly disappointed.

An entertaining, masterful, nostalgic stomp. Unsentimental and brutally honest, it's confrontational, incendiary stuff that underlines Meadows' position as one of Britain's most important contemporary filmmakers.

George Mallea