Back in 2023, director Chris Foggin’s delightful Bank of Dave depicted how England’s Dave Fishwick rose from a working-class bloke who parlayed his one-man car repair shop into Britain’s largest minibus supplier, and then — enraged by what the 2008 financial crisis did to ordinary folks — set up his own lending company.
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| After Dave Fishwick (Rory Kinnear, foreground) publicizes the predatory tactics of payday lenders, they fight back in a way that drags him into court and threatens the existence of his bank. His colleagues — from left, David (Pearce Quigley), Oliver (Amit Shah) and Jessica (Chrissy Metz) — offer words of encouragement. |
Scripters Piers Ashworth and Clare Keogh shaded some events — it was a film, not a documentary — but the core jaw-dropping details were accurate. (Channel 4’s actual 2012 documentary is readily available via YouTube.)
But Fishwick wasn’t finished.
Foggin and Ashworth are back, with the just-released Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, which delivers an equally entertaining and provocative account of what Fishwick did starting in 2013, after learning that some of his customers were being bled dry by the usurious interest charged by payday lending firms.
(We’re warned, as was the case with the first film, that this one’s narrative is “true-ish” at best.)
Rory Kinnear and Jo Hartley return as Dave and his wife, Nicky, who make the perfect team. Events kick off quickly, when — during a chat show — Dave hears from a caller who is being buried beneath crippling interest rates on a payday loan.
He’s stunned to discover that the British government has done nothing about this predatory business model. Dave then allies himself with Oliver (Amit Shah), a Citizen’s Advice & Law Center counsellor who can lead him to numerous victims.
But unlike Dave’s earlier battle, which was limited to British entities, he and Oliver learn that the two largest payday offenders — dubbed Quickdough and Snapcash Advance — are overseen by a dodgy wealthy American named Carlo Mancini (Rob Delaney). This prompts Dave to cajole Jessica (Chrissy Metz), a New York-based financial journalist, into joining them in his Lancashire home town of Burnley.
Their subsequent crusade runs into serious roadblocks. None of the victims is willing to testify in court, for fear of being slapped with even higher interest rates. And while interviewing such folks, Dave learns that both operations are run solely online ... meaning that there’s no physical place for borrowers to pay back in cash, even if they have the necessary amount.
That really annoys him ... but it also prompts the ingenious manner with which he decides to channel public outrage, social media being more of a force than it was, back in 2008.
Dave and his chief financial officer, David Henshaw (Pearce Quigley), purchase some of their customers’ loan debts, at a more affordable rate. Then — while being filmed by “a local lad” — Dave tries to pay off said debts. In person, with cash, at Quickdough and Snapcash Advance’s supposed brick-and-mortar locations.
He can’t, of course, at which point — with Jessica taking notes the entire time — Dave expresses shock and bewilderment, for the camera’s sake. The results quickly go viral.
Across the pond, Mancini isn’t amused ... but he also doesn’t feel threatened. He instructs Margot (Leila Farzad), his ruthless UK barrister and “fixer,” to take Dave down. And they play very dirty.
When the bewildered Dave finds it hard to believe that a supposedly honest barrister could lie with impunity, Margot replies that she simply delivers “a different version of the truth.” (And boy, that line hits home on this side of the pond!)
Kinnear once again is marvelous as the empathetic, whip-smart and mischievously devious Dave. He’s adorable, like a righteous teddy bear. But Dave has limitations; although comfortable when sharing his exploits with TV and radio chat show hosts, he worries about how he’ll come across in a courtroom.
This gives Hartley numerous opportunities to shine, as the always supportive Nicky. But she does more than offer encouragement; she’s equally smart and perceptive, and Hartley is persuasive during Nicky’s revelatory moments.
Shah’s Oliver is nervous, well-intentioned but easily flustered: a good resource, but too often agitated. Metz’s Jessica is the exact opposite: calm, analytical and detail-oriented (as any good journalist should be). It’s therefore obvious that the story will find a way to bring them together.
Delaney is appropriately smarmy as Mancini, and Farzad takes gleeful delight in all of Margot’s underhanded maneuvers. Hugh Bonneville’s Sir Charles Denbeigh, one of the first film’s primary villains, returns briefly in a different capacity.
The ongoing narrative pauses several times for karaoke performances — one of which is incredibly sweet — in Dave’s favorite Burnley pub. And, as was the case in the first film, the members of Def Leppard make a significant appearance, none better than the no-dry-eyes-in-the-house final scene.
At the actual Dave’s insistence, much of the production once again took place in Burnley.
With respect to accuracy, Quickdough and Snapcash Advance are fictitious, as is everything related to the also fictitious characters of Mancini and Margot. But Fishwick really did have himself filmed, trying to pay cash back to various payday lenders, making him an early — and very successful — social media influencer.
(It also should be mentioned that Fishwick’s actual operation is called Burnley Savings and Loans; he has yet to raise the capital required by the Financial Services Authority, in order to be called a bank. Ergo, the sign above his door reads “Bank on Dave.”)
Six months after Chanel 4’s Loan Ranger documentary debuted in January 2014, the UK government finally regulated the payday lending industry. During the next several years, 50 of the largest such companies went bust or voluntarily closed, most notably Wonga, which was Dave’s primary target from the beginning.
You’ve gotta love the guy ... and both of these entertaining films are a reminder that one person really can make a difference.
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