Watched a bad film yesterday with some friends. Thar be spoilers here, but it doesn't matter, because it's almost completely shit:
It's set in Birkenhead in 1979 and follows this young nineteen year old man who's got a real nark on about something. I think it's because his mum's died of something, or because he feels stifled in his middle class life, I'm not sure. He's trying to get into art college and is quite clever, but is desperate to get in with a set of football hooligans who deliberately set out to fight battles with rival gangs, armed with stanley knives. The hooligans all walk around in green cagoules and Addidas trainers, and are led by sheepskin wearing scary fatherly figure bloke who played Combo in This is England. Elvis, a more refined yob keen on poetry and Joy Division, Lou Reed and spouting art school guff - exactly like the young protagonist - takes a shine to him and despite initially advising against joining up shows him a way into the group. Then starts a cycle of violence, shagging, staring, dancing to bits of Joy Division, shouting at each other in borderline impenetrable scouse, staring, violence, shagging, staring, staring, staring, dancing, violence, staring, shagging, shagging, staring, tiny bit more violence, staring, staring, staring oh no one of the gang's gone nuts and stabbed and killed Combo, he's the leader now and my sis has been beaten up by rugby blokes we'll avenge her and it looks like Elvis is in love with me in some sort of unspoken subtext thing and kills himself sort-of off-screen but never mind because we'll not be following that one up and I'm being all extra-narky and starey and oh no! I've been slashed by the new leader and THE END.
It's terrible. It never actually explains any of the character motivations, even important ones like why the protagonist (telling I can't even remember his name, eh?) wants so much to join the gang or why secretly gay and refined Elvis is in the group to start with considering they're all psychotic pub-fight morons. It seemingly drags on for ever, not only due to the fact that the Lovefilm disk kept skipping thus adding an extra half hour on. CHEERS LOVEFILM. The movie frequently grinds to a halt with long runs of staring and snarling and everybody has wedge haircuts. The budget's clearly too low to afford more than a half a dozen coppers to defend a train station from warring gang (yeah, right) and despite all wearing distinctive identical gang uniforms and causing violence every time they step outside, there's no sign of the police ever enquiring after them, even when they effectively commit manslaughter, even murder in a pub. The murder by the way is inflicted on the gang leader, and later at his funeral the young baby faced killer cries a lot out of remorse, but a couple of scenes later clearly gleefully slashes the hero from ear to mouth in a 'shock' ending. Great consistency there.
The only good things about it is that the soundtracks pretty good (The Light Pours Out of Me by Magazine? Tops.) and Liverpool is shot rather atmospherically with milky white skies and misty docks. The look does feel period as well. Aside from that, utter guff. Elvis, approximately a dozen or so times in the film, portentously utters "When will it end?" - a Joy Division lyric - increasingly growing angry and bored in my seat I felt it was a very important question.
We have all agreed never to speak of the film again.
Mark Kermode thinks it's great. THE IDIOT.
1.5/5
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