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Never Had a Chance review – a slice of gritty British Asian life with a side of drug dealing and addiction
['Leslie Felperin']
Guardian South Asia
In fact watching this well-crafted, if somewhat melodramatic, debut for director Jazz Bhalla makes one wonder why there aren’t more films made in the UK with entirely British Asian casts.
Here, it doesn’t makes the film better or worse, but it certainly feels realistic and true to its milieu.
Plus, he might be in with a chance with pretty fast-food vendor Sukhi (Tina Sharma), an ambitious young woman keen to get away from her alcoholic father and drug-dealing brother.
It gradually becomes clear that, for all his charm and chat, Jay isn’t all that put together either.
For starters, he has a growing gambling addiction, which isn’t helped when he gets a wodge of cocaine to sell for another drug dealer and starts getting high on a supply that isn’t really his at all.