Leave aside the online storm over Stormzy's wig.
'Big Man' is the first film to be made by the rapper's Merky Films production company.
A 20 minute short directed by Aneil Karia, the Croydon rap star not only funds the film but stars in it.
This isn't Stormzy's first foray into acting, though, having previously appeared as himself in Michaela Coel's Channel 4 sitcom 'Chewing Gum' and the BBC TV drama 'Noughts and Crosses'.
Shot entirely on an iPhone, Karia's film casts Stormzy as an ex-rapper Tenzman who is trying to get two supersized fridges installed in his home.
Disgusted when the delivery men suggest demolishing part of his kitchen wall, he instead turns to two local kids, Klevis Brahja's Klevis and Jaydon Eastman's Tyrell for help - haggling a price for them coming into his home and helping him shift the fridges.
Naturally the boys ignore Tenzman's warnings about not touching anything in his house.
When they help him move the fridges, the boys insist on getting paid there and then.
Unable to immediately muster up the cash, Tenzman agrees to drive the boys to a local ATM to pay them what he owes.
However he ends up buying the boys ice lollies at a petrol station and then heading to Brighton where they reveal intend to spend their earnings on a day at the pier.
What follows is a sweet natured, if not very stretching tale about human connection as his day out with the boys inspires Tenzman to get back into the recording studio.
It's nicely made with cinematographer Stuart Bentley doing a decent job on the iPhone and it is well acted with the three principals making an engaging, good humoured trio.
Karia, who previously won a Best Live Action Short Film Oscar with Riz Ahmed in 2022 for 'The Long Goodbye,' makes a decent case for a future feature film outing as a director.
Stormzy makes a decent case that he could be a lead man in a much more challenging project.
And while Karia's short will not exactly blow your socks off, 'Big Man' is still a pleasant watch.
It's also a great example of a global superstar using his star power positively to help other artists.
And that can only be applauded.
('Big Man' was released on YouTube and other streaming platforms in the UK and Ireland on June 18, 2025)
In 2019, Colson Whitehead's 'The Nickel Boys' hit bookstores and scooped the Pulitzer Prize for literature the following year as well as numerous other awards.
A tale about two African American boys surviving an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida, it seemed tailor made for a director like Barry Jenkins.
That honour has gone instead to Ra'Mell Ross who has previously directed two documentaries - the Oscar nominated feature 'Hale County - This Morning, This Evening' about the lives of African Americans in an Alabama community which won a Sundance Film Festival award on 2018 and the 14 minute short 'Easter Snap' a year later about five men in the state reviving the ritual of hog processing.
The Georgetown University alum proves an imaginative choice as a feature film director.
Attacking Whitehead's story with brio, he deploys a first person point of view technique like Channel 4's sitcom 'Peep Show' - except even flashier.
Throughout bulk of the movie we view events from the perspectives of two characters, Ethan Herisse, Ethan Cole Sharp and Daveed Diggs' Elwood at various stages of his life and Brandon Wilson as Turner.
Characters directly address Jomo Fray's camera as we see the world through Elwood or Turner's eyes.
Sometimes the narrative shuttles back and forth between the experiences of Elwood as an adult in New York and as a borstal boy in Florida.
At the start of the film, hopes are high for him despite living in Jim Crow era 1960s Tallahassee.
A bright kid, he shines in school and is encouraged by his high school teacher, Jimmie Falls' Mr Hill to think for himself.
Raised by his grandmother, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor's Hattie, we discover his father died in suspicious circumstances in jail.
And while Elwood is inspired by the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King and the work of Hollywood star Sidney Poitier, Hattie fears if he gets too politically involved the white establishment will eventually punish him.
All is going well, with Elwood accepted into college until he hitchhikes one day to campus in a car that the driver has stolen.
The car is flagged down by police and Elwood is accused of being the driver's accomplice.
As a result, he is sent to a reform school, Nickel Academy.
Segregation is practised at the school, with the staff lavishing attention on the white boys who come their way.
African Americans in their charge are used instead as cheap labour to toil in the fields.
However they're not really properly educated.
Nickel Academy's superintendent, Hamish Linklater's Spencer and the institutionalised African American house master Gralen Bryant Banks' Blakely instead discourage Elwood and the other boys from setting their sights high in life.
At first, Elwood struggles to fit in at the academy and is mocked by other boys.
However he eventually strikes up a friendship with Turner who is more cynical about racism in society while Elwood continues to believe that the Civil Rights movement could improve African Americans' lot.
As they aim for release at the age of 18, it also becomes clear that Nickel Academy is a deeply corrupt institution and it harbours some really dark secrets.
Ross, who was Oscar nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film, has crafted one of the most ambitious and accomplished movies you will see this year.
It's good to see a writer-director approaching material like Whitehead's novel with imagination and it is clear from the off that Ross has a strong sense of cinema.
Far from being gimmicky, the first person point of view technique really draws the viewer into the heart of events and enables audiences to see the world from an African American perspective.
Herisse, Cole Sharp, Diggs' Elwood and Wilson adapt well as actors to the challenge of acting off camera when it is their turn for their character to be the eyes and ears of the audience.
Acting in front of a camera that is really a character is a challenge too for those cast members who do not provide a first person view.
Fortunately, Ellis-Taylor, Falls, Linklater, Blakely, Fred Hechinger as Spencer who manages the convict labour program, Sunny Mabrey as Mrs Hardee, Luke Tennie as another borstal boy Griff, Gabrielle Simone Johnson as Elwood's girlfriend and Craig Tate as Chicken are up for that challenge.
Punctuating the movie with clips from Stanley Kramer's 1958 allegorical prison escape drama 'The Defiant Ones' in which Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis' convicts are shackled together, Ross forces the viewer to think about whether the idealism of the Civil Rights era has disintegrated.
Ross and his cinematographer Jomo Fray are also really good at blending beautiful imagery with a sense of melancholy.
A scene where Elwood thinks he sees Martin Luther King on the street is a wonderful visual sleight of hand.
'Nickel Boys' is cinema for grown ups.
It's intelligent, visually imaginative and meditative.
If you haven't seen it already, don't go through 2025 without seeing it.
('Nickel Boys' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on January 3, 2025 and was made available for streaming on Amazon Prime on April 29, 2025)
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