The Bike Thief – Eye Opening Reality of Desperation
Director: Matt Chambers
Writer: Matt Chambers (Screenplay))
Starring: Alec Secareanu, Anamaria Marinca, Lucian Msamati, Anna Wilson-Jones, Amir Boutrous, June Watson, Alexia Maria Proca
Plot: After a delivery driver’s moped is stolen, he must find it before he loses everything else.
Runtime: 1 Hour 19 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Bike Thief starts as we meet The Rider (Secareanu) who is living in a London estate with his wife Elena (Marinca), his teenage daughter Miri (Proca) and new-born baby, he works as a delivery man through the night, but when he has his moped stolen, his life becomes difficult.
As The Rider looks to find his moped he finds the avenues difficult to turn down with his boss not showing any sympathy, he becomes desperate to fix the problem in his life and give his family what they needs.
Thoughts on The Bike Thief
Characters & Performances – The Rider is doing everything he can to provide for his family, he works long late nights as a delivery man around London, with the plan of keeping the roof over his family’s head. He keeps to himself when on the job and off the job, but his life is turned upside down when he has his moped stolen, needing to find a way to replace his income before the man that offered him the role takes it all away from him. Alec Secareanu is brilliant in the leading role here, showing us just how people will do anything for their family to have a positive life. Elena is his wife that is caring for their baby while trying to make it as a cleaner, not always finding the best outcome for this life, being left isolated from anyone else. Victor is seems to be the only friend and more of a co-worker that will give The Rider advice when things go wrong in his life, being the person he turns to the most throughout the film. The supporting performances are strong through the film, with Alec always looking like he is on another level.
Story – The story here follows a man that is working as a delivery man in London in hopes of just being able to support his family until he moped is stolen, leaving him with no way of making an income he needs, leaving him with difficult decisions. This is a story that will show us just how many people are living on their next paycheck and how certain people will have to take the more discreet jobs to remain away from the attention of people, while the job is a delivery job, it will show the hours willing to work to keep a family safe. This highlights just how devastating stealing from someone could be, taking away their chance of a livelihood could ruin lives or force them to make rash decisions.
Themes – The Bike Thief is a drama thriller that will use the London streets to show how together and dangerous the communities can be for a stranger, showing the race against time that the Rider is forced to go on to fix the problem in his life that wasn’t even his fault. Here, we do get one of the few weaknesses, that being the shaky camera involved in a chase, which doesn’t seem to work for the rest of the film being calm approach with the camerawork.
Signature Entertainment presents The Bike Thief on Digital Platforms 3rd May
Available on iTunes here
The Bike Thief is an important look at how lives can be ruined by someone else’s selfishness to steal, with Alec Secareanu shining once again.
