A fine British cast overact or underact in this perfunctory true-life tale of a working-class lad from a sink estate in south London. Relentlessly abused by his snarling mother, beaten by his alcoholic father and ill served by an inadequate social worker, he's variously helped by kindly foster parents and a teacher, drifts into crime after failing as a city trader but ends up writing an inspirational bestseller. The first of the film's many mistakes was the decision that Kevin Lewis was the right man to adapt his autobiography.