A grim, unsparing look at disaffected youth in Thatcher's England, Alan Clarke's Made in Britain features a brilliantly feral screen debut by actor Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs). Like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, Clarke got his start as a director working in television, and he shares their interest in exposing the nasty underbelly of British life. Unlike those directors, Clarke was never able to turn his powerful and influential television work into a successful film career. Clarke's work holds up well, though, as evidenced by this film. Roth plays Trevor, a young skinhead. The film follows Trevor's path -- from court to a detention center to the streets to a prison cell -- with an unflinching eye. Roth has said that he learned much about acting on film from cinematographer Chris Menges. From the opening frames of the film, Menges' captures Roth -- swastika tattoo between his eyes and a rueful smile on his face, swaggering toward the camera -- and the young actor makes an incredibly strong impression. Made in Britain is a confrontational film, much like Leigh's Naked, in which the main character engages in atrocious behavior and says hateful and destructive things, but with a fierce intelligence that can't be easily dismissed. Trevor is a product of a depressed and repressive society, he knows it, and he relishes the opportunity to point it out to the people he sees as his captors. A denizen of the juvenile system for too long, he's heard all their arguments for "improving" his life, and lets them know he's perfectly happy with himself as he is. In the end, the only lesson Trevor can learn is that, as strongly as he believes in his words, brute force will finally shut him up.