A review for the Danny Boyle directed catholicish film about two boys who stumble into riches and a deep moral dilemma. It was commissioned by an editor of one of the national religious papers via the PR company in charge of the film’s promotion. While on reflection this is an unremarkable film, it does touch on some interesting issues, particularly for this readership, and the review was weighted accordingly.

Looking into the boyish, angelic face of 8-year old Liverpudlian Damien (Alex Etel) as he discusses the finer points of heaven with an esoteric saint while sitting in a cardboard box ‘rocket’ at the side of a railway track, evil is furthest from our minds. But, as the title stealthily suggests, this film, exploring what happens when a misappropriated bag stuffed with stolen bank notes falls into the hands of two pre-teens, concerns just that: the root of all evil.

The money in question (£229, 370 to be exact– but that would never have made a snappy title) is thrown from a speeding train onto Damien’s boxed hideaway and quickly transpires to be a lost element of an otherwise successful train robbery. A moral dilemma speeds to the surface as Damien and his elder brother, Anthony (Lewis McGibbon) ponder what to do with their newfound wealth. Damien, believing it to be a gift from God with which he can help the poor, looks to the appearance in his bedroom of famous saints through the ages for guidance as to where to dole out the notes while the more capitalistic-minded Anthony plots to spend and hoard in equal measure.

Both boys ethically tussle with each other in a gentle manner until their single parent father is roped into the secret and they then play the voices of good and evil hovering over his shoulders. The moral quagmire is deepened by the fact the sterling notes were in transit to be destroyed just a few days before they became worthless at the hands of Britain’s switching to the Euro. Ostensibly then no-one but the furnace has been stolen from. All the while the central characters get caught in this swirl of ethical greyness, the criminal who lost the bag closes in on its whereabouts shunting the story along as he does so.

Despite a largely ludicrous plot line that turns on a set of unlikeliest circumstances the whole is pleasingly un-Hollywood and so rooted in gritty everyday reality that it avoids the saccharine absurdity of Love Actually et al. Indeed the unlikely partnership of Scouse screenwriter Frank Cottrel Boyce (described by esteemed Chicago Times critic as “the most original and versatile screenwriter in Britain”) with Director Danny Boyle, of edgy Trainspotting and 28 Days Later fame, conspires to produce a deeply interesting and leftfield family film untouched by Hollywood’s compromising millions.

Thematically, it’s a film that examines deep Christian conundrums regarding the poor, distribution of wealth and how to give with true integrity, while functioning and existing within a western capitalist society. Perhaps unwittingly, it unpicks many of the moral dilemmas that adults face trying to connect with global as well as local poverty and strikes a symphonic chord with those engaging with the make Poverty History campaign.

Ultimately, Damien, in his pure and endearing, yet at once wise naivety, decides that money really does makes things far more complicated and takes the dramatic and cleansing step of burning the cash. The film closes with an ambiguously fact/ fiction sequence where he and his family take off in his cardboard rocket, and visit a third-world community where a well has been built for just £50. It’s clear at the denouement that Damien is by far the richest of the lot and, mercifully, Boyle et al have led us to conclusion artfully, sidestepping the clichéd and twee. This is a film that speaks directly into our lives and the decisions we make by way of exaggerating the facts and scenarios: the essence of deep, life-enriching and challenging cinema.