DIRECTOR STILL LEARNING IN `TWENTYFOURSEVEN'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

``TwentyFourSeven'' is a promising feature directing debut from self-taught English whiz kid Shane Meadows. But even though this sometimes gritty, sometimes luminous, black-and-white slice of life possesses some fine qualities, it's more a well-crafted calling-card film than a fully realized drama.

Meadows, who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Fraser and hired many of his buddies to play roles in the film, has a good eye for observed behavior but lacks the maturity to invest it with depth and resonance. The fact that most of ``TwentyFourSeven'' follows the pattern of a typical uplift-through-sports story (in fact, the whole movie parallels a major plot line from the recent Irish release ``The Boxer'') doesn't help. Though the performances are natural and fresh, the thing plays trite up to its sad and surprising conclusion.

Bob Hoskins gets to do just about everything except speak intelligibly as Alan Darcy, a fireplug everyman with a vision. Seems his nondescript Midlands town has an idle youth problem. The young men hang around in cliques (gasp!), they try to bully food from rival band members (shivers!), some have browbeating parents (the shame!), some enjoy illegal drugs (the shock!).

And some just have dads who are obsessed with soccer attendance figures. Regardless, something must be done to save these boys, and Darcy hits upon opening a boxing club. Soon he has the rival groups (they're not delinquent enough to be called gangs) pulling together in the gym and taking camaraderie-drenched camping trips to Wales. Whatever differences individuals have are worked out in the ring.

Of course, there's a hotheaded lad who can't follow the Marquess of Queensberry rules, a well-off wimpy one with a self-promoting parent, some incipiently gay ones, ones of various ethnic extractions, etc. Though all are convincing to the extent that they're developed, none of them leaves a distinct impression.

They don't appear to be all that at-risk either, especially compared to the pathological losers we're used to encountering in such harder-hitting, dysfunctional British movies as ``Nil by Mouth,'' ``Trainspotting,'' ``Naked'' and dozens more. Even the designated junkie here ODs in a funny, bemused manner.

Indeed, ``TwentyFourSeven,'' the title of which is meant to evoke the everyday/all-day struggle these guys supposedly face, would probably be a more realistic look at Britain's slack generation than those ultra-intense films if it weren't so superficial and sentimental. Then again, we have dramatic heightening because drab realism can be pretty tedious.

Yet ``TwentyFourSeven'' can boast some true grace. There's a bit where Darcy takes his aged aunt out waltzing that's as genuinely sweet as it is unexpected. And even though we cover lots of familiar ground to get there, the film honestly earns its devastating climax, when its ``up with people'' defenses drop and it becomes a tragic little parable about the struggle for self-control.

Meadows, all of 24 when he made this movie, ends it on a note that seems like a springboard toward better, stronger things to come.

THE FACTS

The film: ``TwentyFourSeven'' (R; language, violence, drug use).

The stars: Bob Hoskins, Danny Nussbaum, Jimmy Hynd, Matt Hand and Justin Brady.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Shane Meadows. Written by Meadows and Paul Fraser. Produced by Imogen West. Released by October Films.

Running time: One hour, 36 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Laemmle Monica, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Two and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Darcy (Bob Hoskins), left, coaches Tim (Danny Nussbaum) in ``TwentyFourSeven,'' a drama about how the lives of idle youth in an English town are changed by creation of a boxing group.