Marching Powder is a comedy-drama from writer-director Nick Love (the Football Factory), starring frequent collaborator Danny Dyer (Eastenders). Dyer plays Jack, a middle-aged football hooligan who’s given six weeks to turn his life around or face prison and ultimately losing his family. To add to his troubles, he’s also saddled with playing babysitter to his freshly released from prison, and newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, brother-in-law. This all sounds like a terrific set-up but unfortunately Marching Powder quickly derails and never comes near fulfilling its potential.

Marching Powder is billed as an Action, Comedy, Crime and Romance film. There are fist fights, but it’s not exactly Die Hard. There is crime, in that people take drugs, but it doesn’t feel appropriate to include this in a genre usually reserved for gangsters, heists, hitmen and the likes. It’s a comedy in the way that Coronation Street is a comedy, it contains the occasional moment of humour. But, a light sprinkle of humour makes you a “comedy” about as much as putting pineapple on pizza makes it a fruit salad. As for romance? If anything, it’s the opposite. More on that later.

Marching Powder is a drama, but unfortunately it’s not a very good one. Dramas live and die based on the highs and lows of their narrative. The rise and fall, heights and depths, peaks and valleys (you get the idea). Bafflingly, Marching Powder lacks this most basic of narrative rhythm. The setup is perfect, but the story reaches a point of dramatic tension early on and then remains there for the rest of the movie, without any meaningful escalation or resolution. There are plenty of “defining moments” where Jack must make crucial decisions that will shape his journey, but there are never any real tangible consequences, good or bad, for his actions. It’s not as much the contrast of hitting rock bottom and reaching for the stars, as walking on slightly bumpy ground occasionally brushing your head off the ceiling.

While the story lacks the rise and fall one might expect, you’d think a narrative centered on hooliganism, drugs, and violence would at least deliver some level of “fun”, but even here Marching Powder falls short. The movie neither glamorises nor fully condemns taking drugs. In fact, it portrays them as rather boring. So much so, you’d wonder why Jack bothers taking them at all. Then you witness the complete lack of consequences and think there’s no reason not to take them either.

The occasional “funny quips” feel uninspired and usually amount to little more than mildly amusing insults that often feel out-of-place. In fact, many of these are delivered by Danny Dyer directly to camera as he breaks the fourth wall. This technique can work wonders when used correctly, but these brief asides are neither funny enough nor consistent enough to feel like anything other than pointless filler. It genuinely feels as though the technique was included because someone saw it in another movie and thought it looked cool, or that someone realised too late that several scenes needed sprucing up, and thought that inserting occasional out-of-place fourth wall breaks was the simplest way to do that.

Pretty much all the characters are unlikable. Not hateable like a well-crafted villain, but unpleasant enough that you don’t root for their success. In fact, the most likable character is Jack’s wife (played by Stephanie Leonidas) who I spent the entire movie hoping would fulfil her subplot and successfully cheat on her husband. It’s anti-romance, and I’m fairly certain that wasn’t what the director was going for.

I’m thoroughly confused as to what this film is trying to be. The content is certainly satirical but the tone doesn’t really match. At times it almost seems like an anti-movie, where common tropes are abandoned to subvert audience expectations, but unfortunately what replaces them doesn’t provide for an entertaining or fulfilling viewing experience.

It feels like a fantasy wishlist written by a football hooligan, imagining a perfect world where everyone around him – including family, friends and the judicial system – stops bothering him and finally realises just how “great” he is. A world where people quit their constant nagging and instead learn to support his drug fuelled bouts of violence. It’s a vanity fairy-tale for the aging football hooligan, but one utterly devoid of any moral or lesson.

If you’re a fan of Danny Dyer, or a proud football hooligan, maybe you’ll get some enjoyment out of this. For everyone else, I’d tell you to wait for it to hit streaming, but to be honest I’m not sure I’d recommend it there either.

RATING: 2/5

  • Directed and Written by: Nick Love
  • Starring: Danny Dyer
  • Runtime: 1hr 36min
  • Released:  March 7th, 2025

Review by Ross McCarthy, Dublin based screenwriter and stand-up comedian.

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