Director: Daniel Wolfe
Cast: Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, Connor McCarron, Gary Lewis, Barry Nunney, Wasim Zakir, Ali Ahmad, Anwar Hussain.
Running Time: 112 minutes
Certificate: 15
Daniel and Matthew Wolfe, the writing/directing duo behind music videos for the likes of Paolo Nutini and Plan B, have finally dipped their toes into the feature film ocean…but be warned – Catch Me Daddy may just drag you under its violent waves.
Laila (Ahmed) and Aaron (McCarron) are the film’s Romeo and Juliet, two young adults swept up in their feelings for each other, ignoring the issues concerning Laila’s Pakistani heritage and the violence threatened against them by her family. Living in a tiny caravan in the Middle of Nowhere, West Yorkshire, Laila works at a local hairdressing salon whilst Aaron spends his time getting high and looking for a job. While they may have different aspirational dreams there is one thing they agree on: lie low and stay away from trouble, especially anything concerning Laila’s father’s henchmen. However, it’s not long before Zaheer (Ahmad), Junaid (Hussain), Barry (Nunney), Tony (Lewis) and the rest of the rag-tag team catch up with Laila and Aaron, who won’t be ‘let off’ lightly.
It’s clear from the beginning that Catch Me Daddy focuses on controversial themes, especially those surrounding race, heritage, family line, tradition, betrayal, and a movement into the Western world. Tariq (Zakir), Laila’s father, owns a ‘restaurant’ (a jazzed-up version of a local takeaway). Zaheer, her brother, and his gang of merry men pound the streets of Yorkshire and Leeds in their tracksuits and caps, spliffs hanging from their lips, blasting lurid American rap music from their car’s speakers. Yet it’s Laila’s ‘dishonorable’ behaviour that shames the family, so much so that her father can barely stand to look at his daughter any longer. In contrast, Barry and Tony are your stereotypical hardened Northern lads, their days flitting between snorting cocaine and drinking, and while the pair refer to their Pakistani counterparts in derogatory terms, they’re not as dissimilar as they may think – both groups are chasing a vulnerable young woman in return for a large sum of cash. You couldn’t really make up a better definition of whacked-out Western culture than that.
Aside from the rather disheartening group of characters, Catch Me Daddy is a likable film if you can ignore the stomach-churning violence (when you get to a certain part you’ll understand what I’m referring to), frequent cursing, domestic abuse, and its haunting, cliff-hanger ending. The Wolfe brothers certainly don’t shy away from the nitty gritty, taking cues from the realism genre to give us a truly bleak look at what it’s like to live in a Midlands town – no goals, no love, no family, lots of drugs. Despite her character’s heartbreaking situation Ahmed shines, pouring her soul into Laila’s emotions, stunning the audience in the final few minutes of narrative. If there’s one thing you take away from this film it’s that Laila certainly still is her father’s ‘Chum Chum’ if only he’d give her a chance, as he’s the only thing she has left. It’s a knockout of a debut feature film but isn’t for the faint of heart.
Catch Me Daddy is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday 28th September 2015.
