Genres

Visitors Review

wheres_lee-181-462483 2012-05-25 08:59:45

disappointing

I saw this film in the local DVD hire shop and thought 'wow' this looksgood acid house music, 1990, the guy out of Eden lake, it should begood. This film could have been amazing,there were too manyanachronisms (the phone box, the bank notes, the vehicles that can beseen on the Amsterdam scene and the majority of the soundtrack! notablyNakasaki from 1995 ). The warehouse scenes were poor, no gurners, nosweaters no wide eyed crazy dancers. The costumes could have beenbetter I was expecting acid face t shirts, shell suits, baggy jeans andsome curtains or mushroom haircuts. On the plus side I liked Dylan'shair do, the acting was good from the main characters, John the rat andhis mob looked the part. younger audiences will probably enjoy this butas someone who was around in 1990 wearing a shell suit and listening totunes on a Walkman I wanted more.

davideo-2 2012-05-24 13:23:57

Appropriately lively, bouncy but unfocused rave culture thriller

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Manchester, 1990. Dylan (Jack O' Connoll) and Matt (Henry Lloyd Hughes)are two scallywags who get by nicking fruit machines from pubs, untilthey spot a marketing opportunity in the shape of the emerging acidhouse/rave culture that is springing up in towns and cities across theUK, with hordes of disenfranchised, disaffected young folk breakinginto abandoned warehouses to get off their faces and dance the nightaway, only for the authorities to clamp down on them. Dylan and Mattpropose the biggest rave yet, and enlist the help of a top DJ to helpsee them over. However, it's not long before drugs arrive on the sceneand the criminal element involved plunge the lads into a new anddangerous world that threatens to destroy everything they've worked tobuild.Ever since it arrived over from Ibiza in the late 80s, rave culture hasplayed it's inimitable part in the music, fashion and style of acertain generation of young people, and what it went to lead on to wasarguably it's greatest achievement. Weekender attempts to be a storybased around this phenomenon and is squarely aimed at the audience thefilm is depicting. At the beginning it starts out as sort of style oversubstance, opening with the start of what promises to be a funky,lively soundtrack featuring just the sort of tunes that made thatperiod in musical history so memorable. The soundtrack remains the best asset of the film, but it's worthsticking with the story, because although it retains it's sense ofbeing frenetic and sort of jumbled and incoherent, it does develop intoa more engaging portrayal of two lads living in a very recent time,caught up in an emerging world with unexpected dangers cropping up init. The manner of the film is in line with it's style, with it's spedup shots and blurry camera moments giving it it's added authenticity.Performances wise, O' Connoll is convincing in another notch to hisresume, while Hughes, best known as the bully in The Inbetweeners, ispretty decent support. Emily Barclay and Zawe Ashton are the chicks ondisplay, and they make their mark on the film.The problem with Karl Golden's film is it sometimes (most disasterouslyat the beginning) gets lost in it's own style and doesn't have anengaging story to follow. But it still comes off as a fairly decentthriller, inspiringly set against the back drop a lot of people youngback then can remember. ***