Here we have a film that gives the phrase ‘sent to Coventry’ a grim new meaning. Clubbed is a portrait of life in the Midlands, seen through the eyes of a group of nightclub bouncers– complete with booze, bribes and the odd bloody beating. Based on Geoff Thompson’s autobiographical tome, Watch My Back, it also charts one man’s search to conquer his fears.

Clubbed applies Guy Ritchie’s winning formula. Take one plucky protagonist to drive the plot forward with quick-witted narration. Add a meaty script, a sumptuous cast and a few flavoursome comic moments. Sprinkle with a few montages before turning up the heat and finishing it off with a good pounding. Et voila - A British action flick. Neither the subject matter nor the filming style is particularly original and it lacks the raw energy of say, a Shane Meadows offering, but Clubbed has a well-written screenplay and the overall product is polished and easy to watch.

It is set in the 1980s, where Danny (Mel Raido) is a down on his luck factory worker, who made the fatal mistake of cheating on his wife. Now he lives for the weekend, when he gets to spend time with his two little girls. Every Saturday when he takes them to dance class, he is drawn to the boxing club that goes on in the same building. All he can do is watch through the window, ‘fascinated by the brutality but too scared to go in’. Until Louis (Colin Salmon), a local nightclub bouncer, persuades him to start training.

At the boxing club Danny meets Louis’ employees – Sparky (Scot Williams) and Rob (Shaun Parkes) and is keen to learn from these masters of fear. The casting on Clubbed is exceptional. Sparky is an obnoxious weasel, with bleached blonde hair and a face you’d like to punch, in stark contrast to Rob, who is generous and genuine, with impeccable comic timing. Louis becomes a mentor to Danny, a friendly Adonis who teaches him the art of ‘fighting without fighting’.

Mel Raido makes a great Danny. Initially he is weak and pathetic; he gets beaten up by a thug in a pub in front of his children, and his life plunges into despair. Depicted actively self harming, Danny is ruled by his fear and depression until he learns how to use it to his advantage. As he becomes a more frequent visitor of the boxing club, Louis persuades him to face his fears and engage in a real fight, which gives Danny a newfound confidence.

DANNY: It was the first time I’d fought back. I was shit, but it felt good.

My one complaint is that I feel Geoff Thompson takes self-promotion a bit too far. Not content with simply writing the screenplay, he slips other little self-serving references throughout the film. For example, when Danny decides to confront his fears, and harness them to his advantage, there is a shot of him reading the Geoff Thompson book Fear, which plays like a tacky advertisement. In addition, the issue of Fear/i> used in Clubbed was published in 2007, which hardly maintains the 1980s façade. According to the director and producer, Geoff also appears in some of the boxing club scenes. It’s all just a bit too much.

As Danny learns to defend himself, he gets a feeling of power from training and working out. Although he recognises that ‘pounding leather is different from hitting something that hits you back’, I do feel that Danny treads the fine line between being a man and a beast. When he squares up to the same thug on the street, attacking him with a brick, Danny rips off his shirt and screams bloody murder, his rippling veins conveying his animal-like predatory desires. Although he looks fit to tackle the incredible hulk, his aggression comes across as frightening, and he no better than the bullies who attacked him.

Danny’s final induction into the group comes when he visits Louis’ club, Valhalla. I find it slightly worrying that the club’s name means ‘Hall of the Slain’, although it does prove ominous for certain cast members. As Danny gradually takes on the role of bouncer, he states, ‘the boys took me in and gave me a spine’. I will give Clubbed credit where it’s due: it balances action and comedy very well. The scenes where Danny is finding his fighting feet…or fists had me laughing out loud. It would have been easy to make such a male-dominated film have anti-female humour, but Clubbed did not fall into this trap.

After Danny’s first night at Valhalla, Rob gives him a lift home and Danny invites him in for a coffee to which Rob replies, ‘Jesus, I give you a lift home and now you want a shag?!’ Danny tries to offer him a Lemsip instead and the dialogue that follows is comedy gold, and becomes a skilfully used motif later in the film. Although powerful on their turf, under the cover of night, in the harsh light of day Danny and all around him discover that sometimes fighting back only causes more problems. Especially if you are defending yourself from local drug dealer and crime lord, Billy Hennessy (Ronnie Fox).

To get his wares into the club, Hennessy simply had to spot ‘the weakest link’. In Valhalla’s case – this was Sparky. Billy puts him ‘on the payroll’ to let drug dealers into the club, sucking Sparky in with an ‘easy earner’. The issue of drugs was presented well, as was the comedic use of dual perspective – Sparky gets the dealers in and Rob, conversely, catches them red-handed and kicks them out, confiscating their gear, taking their money and putting it in the church collection box. Unfortunately for Rob, it doesn’t take Hennessy’s cronies long to inform on him. It becomes painfully clear that there are some fights that are just impossible to win.

The plot strays in focus from the central character and instead deals with his reaction to other people’s personal battles. Mel Raido portrays a newly developed Danny, who learns to accept both the ups and the downs of his newfound life. Although he is afraid, he is now aware of the universal nature of fear, and how to use this to his advantage. The action builds to a climax, which could have easily have been a big predictable fight. Instead the focus is on the anticipation, the build up and the confrontation of fear, linking it back into Danny’s personal journey. The ending includes a clever twist, which the producer and director claimed was the only thing in the film that wasn’t true to life. This ruined it for me slightly, as I wanted to believe such a great story could be true. Even with this disappointment, Clubbed is thoughtful and fun to watch. It makes a good replacement to the dire recent Guy Ritchie offerings, to say the least.