Which I was not aware of when watching the film, which was funny as I thought the script was a bit far fetched!

Schemers 2020 15 Director: Dave Mclean Starring: Conor Berry, Sean Conner, Grant Robert Keelan, Tara Lee, Blair Robertson, Paula Masterton, Alastair Thomson Mills etc

Overall rating 46/100

Schemers is about a man from Dundee called Davie ( Conor Berry) who has his football career ruined, so instead decides to set up a new business with his mates where they promote gigs for musical bands. Schemers had it's moments of charm and likeability but sadly for the most part fell apart for me and was just too mediocre, so let's get started.

First of all it was funny, had some nostalgic moments and had a likeable main character. The movie had a great humour, largely due to the banter between the three friends, often reminding me of my relationship with my friends, they all were very funny to watch and they all had good comedic chemistry. The movie also had some interesting nostalgic moments, the movie very clearly had some trainspotting inspiration, due to some similar scenes and a similar soundtrack, occasionally matching the energetic charm that Trainspotting had as well. Davie was also for the most part a very likeable main character, he had a lot of charm and humour, and bought the energetic charm that the main characters from trainspotting had, he always made the film at least watchable so hats off to Conor Berry.

However, my first few negatives would be the pacing issues, lack of clear plot and repetitive plot points. The movie had a mixture of very slow pacing and rushed pacing and very rarely found a consistency that worked. Often it was very slow and there was a lack of interesting plot points making parts boring, and at other times some potentially interesting moments felt rushed and not enough time was spent on them. The film also lacked a clear plot, to be honest there wasn't enough plot to make into a movie, it just felt very much the same and never really went far enough to develop a whole story. There was also very repetitive plot points, a lot of the situations involved with the plot for most of the movie was just the same, it was just disco, gig and a few jokes, it got boring to see the same thing after a while, and sadly there just wasn't enough effort put in to change things up with the creativity or depth to the plot.

My final few positives would be the cinematography, narration and good themes expressed. The movie was very aesthetically pleasing, and managed to promote the beauty of Dundee very well, with some great set locations and long establishing shots to really make you appreciate the characters surroundings, next I really enjoyed the narration from the main character, this for me bought the most amount of humour, and it made you understand the main character and what he was thinking a lot more. There was some great one liners and relatable humour and for me it was one of my favourite parts and was always executed well. And finally there was some good themes expressed, the whole theme of not getting too big for your boots or over confident was well explored and will make a lot of people stop and think.

However, my final few negatives would be the lack of depth to the plot or connection to any of the relationships, lazy set up of conflicts and a unsatisfying ending. The movie as I have previously mentioned just lacked any depth to any of its plot or characters, it never really went anywhere and for me there was just a lack of effort to try and make a more deep plot or more connectable characters and they were trying to mask that up with nice visuals and humour/ nostalgia factor, due to this I sadly didn't care about any of the relationships within the movie or any of the characters, they went into such little detail into all the characters relationships they were just there, that deep bond you would expect or conflict set up for the characters was just never really there or just lazily done just to say they added something into it. The ending for me was also sadly very underwhelming, it ended very abruptly and there was no satisfying ending to the character arcs, and even the build up to the big event didn't pay off due to the lack of actual time spent on it, so this was a shame.

So overall despite a charming tone and main character with great nods to Trainspotting. Schemers put all of its effort into the laughs and visual appeal and practically none into the plot and depth to the characters involved.

David wanted to be a football player before an injury. Now he's in love with a nurse named Shona and the concerts and disco he's running - with his buddies Scot and John - have all been to impress her. After a few successes, our hero decides to go all in on a hugely ambitious Iron Maiden show. However, to make that happen, he has to throw in with a gangster named Fergie, which means that the biggest show of his life may just be his last one.

This film is based on truth, as the early years of Dave Mclean's life in the music business really did have him promote a Maiden show at Dundee's Caird Hall on June 12, 1980. For Maiden fans, they opened with "Sanctuary."

This is Mclean's first movie as a writer, director and producer. He brought plenty of American grunge and punk bands to the UK, including Nirvana, Mudhoney, The Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day before managing Placebo.

He's to be forgiven for making his film look, feel and play a lot like Trainspotting, because both films cover a lot of the same ground. It does have a good soundtrack going for it, including Saxon, Hawkwind, Dead Kennedys, The View, Placebo and, of course, Iron Maiden.