Schemers film review. From Dundee with love.
Schemers is a film that if looked at from a film’s critics perspective has its flaws but for your casual film watcher this film is entertaining in a straightforward way. It is in fact the opposite of Tenet. There is a painting by numbers construction to the film that follows the fortunes in the true story of concert Promoter Dave McLean from his days putting on a disco through to being the promoter who brought Iron Maiden to Dundee.
This is not a grand biographical film from rags to riches nor is it a musical with cast members doing dance numbers to Iron Maiden like Dancing in the Dark. It is instead an origins story showing how it all started. The film checklists the bands who McLean brought to Dundee including an early Simple Minds. For a viewer Schemers shows how comically easy it was to book the bands. All it took was a call from a public phone box and lots of confidence and the bands were booked. The film narrows down to the Iron Maiden concert in Dundee and that is the top of this films hill. Of course, for this to work barriers need to be put in the way of our promoter on the rise. This arrives in the form of Dundee’s criminal fraternity. They control the venues with a big cut due to them which our heroes cannot meet so resort to desperate if un-original ways to get the money. One way includes a house re-mortgaged and that traditional way film way to raise money in a hurry, gambling.
To be fair this is biographical based on the exploits of legendary music promoter Dave McClean who wrote and directed the film. Thanks to engaging performances from Conor Berry as Dave McClean his films is served well. There is something of the innocence of Gordon Sinclair as Gregory in his Berry’s performance. Like Gregory there is an idealised beautiful girl Shona (Tara Lee) for Dave to pursue on crutches as a result of a broken leg from her boyfriend. You watch them in their small pool that is seventies Dundee, and you want them to succeed. Especially touching are small school criminal Scot (Sean Connor) and DJ John (Grant Robert Keelan) the local DJ with a domineering wife. Schemers is not Gregory’s Girl nor is it Trainspotting.
The first half Schemers over does the freeze frame effect followed by narration in its efforts to tell you the story. The problem I have with over doing freeze framing in films is that it slows down the story making a film feel like a set of infomercials. You almost expect a freeze frame with a voice over telling you what the characters had for dinner. As a film Schemers was shot twice as the first cut did not make sense so they shot lots more extra scenes. As the film passes fifty-minute mark it feels like it’s trying to find scenes to keep it going to its finale that is the Iron Maiden concert. When we get to it all we get are a series of naive we didn’t know the Iron Maiden manager would ask for this which leads to a few scenes were locals are roped into helping. Looking at the credits for the film at its end you can see the many locals of Dundee who helped on the film. More interestingly you get to see what Dave McClean did next but more interestingly what Scot (Sean Connor) and DJ John (Grant Robert Keelan) went on to do and not all of it is legit. Apparently plans are afoot to turn the remaining parts of the Schemers story into a short TV series. Perhaps it is TV were this story can shine more.
