Star Rating:

A Street Cat Named Bob

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Actors: Luke Treadaway, Ruta Gedmintas

Release Date: Friday 4th November 2016

Genre(s): Drama

Running time: 103 minutes

Busker James Bowen (Treadaway) is a homeless heroin addict struggling to cobble together pennies for a meal. Convincing social worker Val (Downton's Froggatt) to give him a flat earmarked for single mothers or an evicted pensioner, James promises to clean up and kick the habit. Knocking about the dilapidated flat he befriends a stray ginger tomcat whom he names Bob and with it perched on his shoulder as he busks, James becomes a minor celeb on the pavements of Covent Garden. But the spectre of the needle isn't easy to shake off, especially as heroin is so readily available on his sink estate.

Adapted from James Bowen's 2012 best seller, which was in turn based on a true story (Bowen himself turns up in a wink-and-nod cameo), A Street Cat Named Bob is a cheery and serviceable tale of determination and hope. Despite the greys of the sink estate, homelessness, rough characters knocking about, and the loneliness and all, this isn't a hard-and-grim Ken Loach take on the material: Director Roger Spottiswoode (Air America, Tomorrow Never Dies) is determined to make the journey as pleasant as possible, skimming over the (what must have been) more difficult moments of overdoses and withdrawals. The romance with hippy cat whisperer Belle (Ruta Gedmintas) is chaste and the strained relationship with dad (Buffy's Head) is undercooked. The 12A rating is just.

What Spottiswoode does insist on is a questionable cat POV, probably an attempt to give Bob some personality and tighten the on-screen bond between the two, just like he did with Hanks and the slobbering mess in his Turner & Hooch. The tactic is not successful with the fondness here decidedly one way (then again, it's a cat – you don't get much out of them unless they want something). But Bowen cuts an affable figure and his resolve to kick heroin for good this time is an endearing factor. Treadaway continues to be the likeable lead he was in Brothers of the Head (a bizarre and wholly original mockumentary that must be seen) and You Instead with a soft performance and he belts out the sub-Ocean Colour Scene acoustic numbers with gusto.

It won't do for cat movies what Dean Spanley did for its canine counterparts, and it's difficult to stop thinking that perhaps the single mothers or the pensioner were more in need of the flat, but Street Cat is a watchable affair.