Schemers
It doesn’t take long to realise that Schemers, the directorial debut from Dave McLean, wears its influences on its sleeves. A mere 20 seconds into proceedings, the frame freezes as a young (or wee, given the geography) lad is being chased by a brute of a man, with the Scottish narrator pledging to tell us how we ended up there.
As opposed to the Edinburgh setting of that Scottish film, this autobiographical genre hybrid takes place in Dundee, charting McLean’s rise from university student to music promoter. Conor Berry plays the affable Davie here, a self-assured and ambitious teenager who gets by on his charm. Our first glimpse of this rogue is amid a botched hookup, in which he is caught with someone’s fiancée, resulting in a bloodied nose and broken leg for his troubles. Whilst recovering in hospital, he becomes smitten with Shona (Tara Lee), a part-time nurse who studies at the same university. Determined to impress her, he brags of the discos he’s organised, not realising he’s about to place himself in a quandary; as Shona agrees to a date, he quips “she called my bluff”. Tasked with organising something at short-notice, he enlists the help of small-time drug-dealer Scot (Sean Connor) and John (Grant Robert Keelan), a local DJ.
What begins as a spontaneous venture gradually becomes a steady profession, with the trio ditching the disco for fully-fledged gigs, attracting more illustrious acts (Simple Minds, XTC, Ultravox) with each event. No longer content with just upcoming bands, Davie begins to have aspirations of acquiring top acts like Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd, which inevitably requires a change in strategy. Local gangster Wullie McClean (Kit Clark) has a monopoly on all the venues in the area, meaning Davie's initially harmless business is now the focus of the town, with more money being borrowed and subsequently thrown away at the bookies.
With McLean directing, editing and co-writing his own story, there’s a risk of Schemers coming across like an indulgent vanity project, but thankfully it is an honest enough tale. Aside from the lacklustre treatment of Shona, a character who feels every ounce a composite given how little depth there is, the central trio are all likeable even if they’re occasionally morally questionable. John, with both a mortgage and holiday to finance, has the most to lose, with an already rocky marriage threatening to buckle under the weight; in a truly touching moment, we see him finally acknowledge the toll it has taken on his downtrodden wife — the scene-stealing Paula Masterton — a rare moment of subtlety in an otherwise boisterous film.
Though the narration is overused in the opening half of the film the tone is a good match to the setting and narrative. Dundee is clearly a place dear to the director’s heart, with the film possessing a keen sense of location throughout. The idiosyncrasies, whether it be in using deep heat to treat a broken leg or measuring distance on a map with a battered sausage, are fittingly genuine and humorous. Conversely, the more dramatic beats where Davie finds himself at the mercy of the local mob, feel a little more stagey, with McLean undoubtedly having work to do when outside his comfort zone of teenage shenanigans and mischief.
Curiously, the postscripts for each character are more compelling than their exploits in the film, posing the question of why such a strict narrative time frame was imposed on the production. Though perhaps unlikely, given his surprising current job, this could be a springboard for McLean to branch out and challenge himself artistically. Even so, Schemers is breezy fun released in a challenging time that, much like its protagonist, bites off more than it can chew.