Much of the important things were real: the songs, the rhyme, the flow, the friendship. It was the window claying that was, yes, dressing. In the early Augpts, a couple of Scottish BFFs, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, were desperate to escape their provincial life in the coast Scotland. The boys loved rapping and revered actions like D12 and Eminem, and they were not half errors on it either. The problem? Nobody wanted to hear or see or support Scottish Dudes Rappa, with a NU-iconic audition that ended when a scout sniffed at them and called them “rapped Proclaimers.”
What should two picky boys do? In real life, just as in James McAvoy’s Peppy Feature Direction debut “California Schemin ‘” It traces the story two decades later, it became a matter of giving the audience what they wanted. And what they wanted, Gavin and Billy decided, were a couple of California rappers. So from California they should be.
For his debut with function director, Proud Scooter James McAvoy Has plenty of material to draw from: The Real Story of Gavin and Billy, of course, plus Bains 2010 memoir of the same name and a documentary 2013 entitled “The Great Hip Hop Hoax”, Archie Thomson and Elaine Gracies script, and McAvoy’s own apparently complicated feelings about his homeland. Scotland was also complicated for Gavin and Billy, and while their schedule initially involved a planned large disclosure of their actual Provenance, the better to hold on to a classist and elitist industry who did not want their brogues in their rap musicIt slowly falls away.
It is fun enough at first, thanks to McAvoy’s energetic direction and strong turns from its young stars, including Seamus McLean Ross (as Gavin, later to become known as brains), Samuel Bottomley (like Billy, later to become known as SiliBil) and the very charming Lucy Halliday (as Billy’s girl). The trio works together in a call center in suburban Dundee, but quiet Gavin can’t help but dream big. When he hears about an open audition in London (McAvoy himself plays a wonderful scuzzy music director who knocks out the conversation), he and Billy light up for the big city.
It does not go well, and when the boys are laughed out from the office, the city, the country, Gavin will not give up. Free wheels, loud Billy does not seem so much bothered, but it is Billy’s own worketose that gives Gavin his brilliant idea: at Callcenter they give customers what they want. Why not do it with their rapping? Bolted by a lovely assembly who sees the boys bend for their American culture and accents – Look at “Die hard” and scream “Show me the money!” And “We were on a break!” – The energy flies when they went to London again.
This time they are from “San de Angeles.” They talk to a surfer boy’s influence. They wear a metric tone skater children’s clothes. They are Silibil N Brainz. The duo bluff mainly through the city and eventually captures the eye on Scout Tessa (Rebekah Murrell), which helps them land almost immediately, their dreams come true with astonishing speed. But when they zip through early Aghts London (a trip to the MTV studios to show up on “The Hook”, Millennial Movie-Goers will some serious flashbacks), their quest to “reveal Wankers” takes a hard turn. It turns out that the dazzling of the industry can blind almost anyone.
Many of the stories here are quite traditional for music biopic genre – Billy starts sleeping around and skipping calls from Mary, Gavin really gets drugs and alcohol, both boys go all-in to be “from California” – And everything starts to take care of the inevitable. But it is a type of point: these stories, both real and false, follow this trope-laden bow because that is what tends to happen most often. The industry chews people up and spit them (and their dreams) back.
It is the oldest story in the book, but it has done the more crushing in “California schemy” “because Gavin and Billy are so very convinced that they are moving one over on the brass. However, that tension is never really resolved and as film As we move closer to their expected revelations, we can already guess how and where all this can end. The same old song, only with a slightly different pace.
Rating: B-
“California Schemin ‘” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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