Main Cast: Kelli Hollis, James A. Foster, Michael Taylor, Holly Kenny, Jake Hayward
Release Year: 2006
Country: UK
Run Time: 93 minutes
Plot
In the week leading up to the one night of the year when chaos and trickery run rampant in the streets, two racially-divided, working-class Yorkshire communities become locked into a semi-comic collision course of cultural misunderstandings in the third and final installment of director Penny Woolcock's "Tina" trilogy. Tina (Kelli Hollis) is a single mother living in a predominately Caucasian Leeds housing project with her teenage son Tyler (Michael Taylor), twelve-year old daughter Kimberly (Holly Kenny), and young son Macauley (Jake Hayward). Kimberly has always been led to believe that her father was dead, and when she finds out that he is in fact still living she storms across the park to a neighborhood primarily populated by Muslim Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. It's there that Kimberly makes the acquaintance of Asif (Qasim Akhtar), the rebellious younger brother of her mother's one-time love interest Immie (Ramon Tikaram) - who has recently emerged from an extended stint in prison. As Mischief Night draws near and both families are forced out of their neatly divided neighborhoods, Tina's drug-dealing father Don (Gwyne Hollis) will lovingly show grandson Tyler the tricks of the trade while Don's subordinate Quassim (Christopher Simpson) schools Asif to the ins-and-outs of pushing heroin. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Cast
Kelli Hollis
James A. Foster
Michael Taylor
Holly Kenny
Jake Hayward
Ramon Tikaram; Qasim Akhtar; Sarah Byrne; Christopher Simpson; Gwyne Hollis; Shahid Ahmed; Katherine Kelly; Mary Wray; Olga Grahame
Credit
Jo Baker - Art Director, Joey Attawia - Costume Designer, Penny Woolcock - Director, Michael Parker - Editor, George Faber - Executive Producer, Charles Pattinson - Executive Producer, Tessa Ross - Executive Producer, Hugo Heppell - Executive Producer, Robyn Slovo - Executive Producer, Peter Dale - Executive Producer, Murray Gold - Composer (Music Score), Dayal Nihalani - Musical Direction/Supervision, Bobby Friction - Musical Direction/Supervision, John Ellis - Production Designer, Robbie Ryan - Cinematographer, Abi Bach - Producer, Willow Grylis - Producer, Rupert Ivey - Sound/Sound Designer, Penny Woolcock - Screenwriter, Graham Headicar - Supervising Sound Editor
Mischief Night is a British comedy film released in 2006. It is the third instalment of the Tina Trilogy following on from Tina Goes Shopping and Tina Takes a Break. However, unlike the previous two Channel 4 films Mischief Night broadens its scope to consider the wider community that Tina lives in and address issues of racial segregation. Tina is played by Kelli Hollis in all three films.[1]
The film is produced by the makers of Shameless in which Kelli Hollis also stars playing the character of Yvonne.
Set on a deprived Leeds estate where Asian and white residents have segregated. Tensions between the two communities come to a head on the unruly Mischief Night. The film shows several peoples involvement in this.
Characters
Asif - A young Asian boy of about ten or eleven. Although to his parents he is an innocent young Asian lad, Asif is a tearaway when he is away from home. Asif's involvement begins when he steals a car and crashes into Qassam. Qassam is a thug and drug dealer in the Asian community and after beating him demands Asif pays him back for the damage to his car. It is at this point that Asif is forced to work for Qassim, delivering drugs and collecting payments in order to pay off his debts. Whilst doing this he befriends Kimberley and helps her search for her real father. After crashing a Taxi owned by Qassam in the process of doing this, Asif decides his only way out is to Kill Qassam. Together with Kimberley they acquire a gun and stake out the house with the intention of killing him. Kimberley fires the shot but Qassam survives.
Kimberley - A young girl of about ten or eleven who sets out to find who her real father is. While out she meets Asif and the two of them become friends. Kimberley agrees to help Asif kill Qassam. The two of them stake out his house with the intention of shooting him through the window. Their noise however lures him outside. Kimberley then shoots him in the chest, just as her mother (Tina) runs up to her, telling her Qassam is her father. Qassam survives the shot however.
Tyler - After steeling a safe from a golf club, Tyler turns to his granddad to help him open it. With others the two of them take it to a field and blow the safe apart, finding it to only contain golf balls. Tyler then joins his granddad in routing out rival dealers on the estate. Tyler tires however of simply being a messenger and look out, acquires a gun and intends to go it alone, dealing drugs on the estate, Tyler manages this with some success. On his rounds, Tyler comes across Jane, an unemployed single mother with a chronic heroin addiction. After finding her baby in the floor, dirty and attempting to drink bleach, Tyler offers to take the baby out, much to the indifference of her mother. This becomes a habit and Tyler becomes the sole parent figure to the baby.
Eye Patch Imam - A radicalised Muslim, who preaches hate and advocates terrorism in the local mosque. Tina describes him when he was young to be a pervert with little interest in religion, stating that he 'used to have use of two eyes and would use them both to look up your skirt'. After beating children for their disinterest in the mosque, Imam loses the support of more liberal Muslims. Finding himself alienated he attempts to break into the mosque with supporters of his, take it by force, change the locks and keep the mosque for more fundamentalist teachings.
Immie - A liberal Muslim, brother to Asif and former associate of Qassam. Immie is also a friend of Tina. Immie becomes concerned about rising radicalisation in the mosque and uses the powerful, ruthless figure of Qassam to prevent the coup planned by Eye Patch Imam.
Filming Locations
The film was set made around several different areas of Leeds, however primarily the 'Asian' area of Leeds was filmed around Beeston while the 'White' area was mainly filmed around Hunslet and Tingley. Scenes were also filmed in Belle Isle and Middleton. One scene where tram pylons were required had to be filmed in Sheffield.
