RELEASED two years ago, Kidulthoodtook place over two remarkably eventful days as it candidly - and provocatively - observed west London teens who attend the same school and whose lives revolve around drugs, sex and violence. This sequel is set six years later, when former school bully Sam is released from prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter in which the victim was 15.

Noel Clarke, who reprises his role as Sam, wrote the screenplay for both movies and takes over as director for the sequel, which is set over a single day. As Sam readjusts to the outside world, and continues to deal with his guilt and remorse, he realises that he is the target for a revenge killing.

John Crowley's recent Boy Atackled a similar scenario with far greater depth and conviction than Clarke brings to his over-plotted tale. Adulthood struggles to contain and develop all the many characters it attempts to interlink. Most are entirely amoral, bristling with aggression. Among them are the teen thugs, hired to kill Sam, who, in one of the film's more striking images, go about their business on bicycles.

Clarke acquits himself better as an actor than writer or director, and he and newcomers Scarlett Alice Johnson and Ben Drew are the most plausible among a wildly uneven cast. For a movie that purports to deal with a man turning his back on violence, it is graphic in its many physical confrontations. Much of the expletive-littered dialogue is indecipherable and ought to have been subtitled.

MICHAEL DWYER