A incisive portrait of the tensions that exist within a working class family. A slow-burning depiction of economic degradation in Thatcher's England. In this film, unemployment is rampant in London's working-class East End, where a middle-aged couple and their two sons languish in a claustrophobic public-housing flat. As the brothers (Phil Daniels and Tim Roth) grow increasingly disaffected, the grinding boredom of their daily existence is punctuated with tense encounters, including one with a priggish aunt (Marion Bailey) who has managed to become middle-class and a blithering skinhead on the verge of psychosis (a scene-stealing Gary Oldman, in his first major role).