The film deals with the story of the adopted Jamaican child adopted by an elderly white couple in Britain. The child grew up embracing a different society in an entirely white area of London, one of the most respected and feared men indeed, which could make a far different future.
Inanimate dialogue and plodding pacing don't give the talented cast much to work with, and the camera is directed with all the grace of a pub brawl at closing time.
The film's repetitive structure never quite resolves into something we can properly engage with, especially when a somewhat heavy-handed message rears its head.
It is a bit better than many recent lipsmacking movies on similar subjects... but there's still the same self-serving, self-sentimentalising macho nonsense.
There isn't, in fact, a single off-key performance in what is otherwise an ordinary film.
Daily Mirror (UK)
August 01, 2008
When Anozie isn't delivering a tired voiceover about honour on the terraces, we're treated to rubbish fights, feeble dialogue and mockney accents. Dreadful.
Cass has more heart than your average hooligan flick, but it's a clumsy, compromised film, hamstrung by its own redemptive structure and too infatuated with its protagonist to take an objective point of view.
Though the narrative is saggy and you feel there's nowhere left to go after the first hour, a much-needed dash of class from Jon S Baird's direction helps lift 'Cass' above its oft-reactionary genre brethren.
