A One Mann’s Movies review of “Marching Powder” (2025).
“Marching Powder” came out two weeks ago while I was on holiday, so you will need to be quick to catch it in cinemas. But I’m sure it will be streaming shortly. Nick Love’s “Rom-com with a kick” was actually very entertaining, in a disturbing sort of way. But I was left with conflicting thoughts about the subject matter.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Marching Powder” Plot:
Jack Jones (Danny Dyer) is a football hooligan. He attends matches not for the football but to snort cocaine and engage in mindless, violent battles with the opposing supporters. Arrested and hauled up before a judge, Jack is given 6 weeks to sort his life out or face a prison sentence. But can the loser change his ways and find the path to both maintaining his freedom and keeping the respect of his long-suffering wife Dani (Stephanie Leonidas) and son JJ (Arty Dyer)?
Certification:
UK:Â 18;Â US: NR.. will be an R. (From the BBFC web site: “Very strong language, sex references”.)
Talent:
Starring: Danny Dyer, Stephanie Leonidas, Arty Dyer, Calum MacNab, Lex Shrapnel, Barney White, Dean Harrison, Geoff Bell.
Directed by: Nick Love.
Written by: Nick Love.
Running Time: 1h 36m.
“Marching Powder” Summary:
Positives:
- Some laugh-out-loud moments.
- The ‘story arc’ of the film is interesting.
- Danny Dyer is, well, Danny Dyer but Stephanie Leonidas is particularly good.
- The casting of Arty Dyer, Danny’s real life son, as his son is genius.
Negatives:
- The behaviour of Jack and his friends leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth about some portions of British society.
- Where does Jack get his money from?
- When the BBFC say “very strong language”, they ain’t kidding. There is more use of the c-word in this film that the rest of 2025’s film releases put together.
Review of “Marching Powder”:
Does this glorify senseless violence?
The film is a comedy/drama, with more comedy than drama. But it is set around a subset of society that you would love to think is science fiction… some dystopian future society where law and order has broken down and warring factions set out to destroy and dominate each other. But, sadly, this is the actual mindset of a small proportion of football ‘supporters’ (I use the term loosely) whose only goal (pardon the pun) is to get high on coke and/or booze, find opposing supporters and beat the shit out of them. It’s sad and depressing.
Does the film normalise or even glorify this behaviour? I find it difficult to decide. The snorting of cocaine is constant and excessive. The scenes of street battles are violent and nasty (even with the jokey football commentary over the top). But the impact on Danny is serious and visible. It is destroying his health, risking his eviction from his house, owned by father-in-law (Geoff Bell), and destroying the fragile fabric of his family.
The comedy is funny.
But, shows like “The Thick of It” show that you don’t have to approve of the behaviour of the characters in order to have a good laugh. And this certainly delivers a steady stream of laughs alongside the dramatic violence. It passed the 6-laugh test for me. And this is not counting the use of terrible language (which some people seem to laugh at for its own sake): the film is certainly chock-full of ‘f-words’ and ‘c-words’, so if you are offended by this you need to give this one a miss.
Rom-com elements.
This is also a romantic comedy, of sorts, leaning heavily at times on “Love Actually”, particularly in the painful conversation through a restaurant window using jotter pads. Danny Dyer is not your natural choice as a Hugh Grant replacement, but he does have a rogueish Han-Solo-style charm about him and a twinkling personality. His foil for this is Stephanie Leonidas, who is enormously likeable and charming as Danny’s long-suffering wife Dani.
A touching, if unusual, relationship also plays out between Jack and his son JJ. Jack is perfectly happy to stick JJ in front of porn videos to entertain him… as long as it’s “normal porn” and not the pansexual-fests that JJ wants to watch! Father of the year! Apparantly, Dyer cast his son in the role since they couldn’t find another young actor (or rather, those young actor’s parents!) who would agree to all of the choice dialogue that JJ has to come out with! But the film has a few touching father and son moments. For example, in a scene where they are play fighting at home, the scenes feel real and genuine… because they are.
The drama hits home too.
Despite all the gags, the dramatic moments in the film also land well. There is a subplot about Dani’s bi-polar brother, Kenny-Boy (Calum MacNab), who Jack has to try to keep out of trouble deriving from his truly ‘terrifying psychopathic episodes. Kenny doesn’t help matters by slashing the face of a Tranmere Rovers supporter and dragging Jack into a shootout with a local hoodlum, both of who swear revenge.
I will also commend the film for its story arc. It would have been easy for the film to take a traditional ‘rags to riches’ route (or rather, ‘destitution and prison’ to ‘just-about-making-do and freedom’). But, without spoilers, the story arc follows quite an unusual path that I was not expecting.
But where does he get his readies from?
One area where the story really lacks credibility is in the financial status of Jack and his family. Jack doesn’t work… he struggles to hold down even menial jobs during his 6 weeks of probation monitoring. Dani doesn’t seem to work either. And yet Jack is able to snort INDUSTRIAL volumes of cocaine, beer (later pear juice) and travel to away football matches. He also zooms around town in a pretty fancy car. There seemed to be no explanation for this, unless Jack was actually a drug-dealer. Perhaps that was deliberately hidden from the viewer, since a destroyer of vulnerable people’s lives would have tarnished the cuddly twinkly image of our Jack-the-lad hero?
Summary Thoughts on “Marching Powder”
I struggled a bit with my rating for this one, since giving it a 3.5 stars feels like I’m supporting the sort of behaviour in the film… which I’m definitely not doing… I think these types of people are animalistic neandethals who should be locked up for a very long time. But, and the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man agreed with me on this, the film is undeniably entertaining. It was certainly more entertaining than “Snow White“, although as Danny Dyer points out in some of his entertaining trailer for the film, this one is decidedly NOT for kids!
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Marching Powder”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nQQEmQp7s . Dyer prefaces the trailer with a funny rom-com skit. (Note: this is the red band trailer… the audio is NSFW!)
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