Sumotherhood review – Adam Deacon’s gang culture parody falls flat

This supposed skewering of macho posturing turns everything into one big joke – and Ed Sheeran’s role is unforgettable in the worst possible way

We learn two key things from Adam Deacon’s frenetic gang culture parody Sumotherhood. One of these is that Ed Sheeran will apparently do anything for attention, including, it seems, playing a vagrant who defecates in a hedge. File it alongside the dog excrement scene in John Waters’s Pink Flamingos as something we don’t ever need to see again, thanks. The other thing is the fact that skewering the macho posturing and casual sexism of gang culture is never going to work if the film is also, to some degree, in thrall to those same traits.

It’s a wildly uneven mess. A pity, because Deacon, who stars as well as directs, playing bipolar wannabe street-smart “roadman” Riko, is doing something rather courageous in confronting his own mental health problems. However, by making it all a bit of a larky in-joke, it rather undermines the good intentions.