Pirates

Pirates is a very short comedy that accomplishes a lot within the 80 minute run time, centring on three best friends during the most important new year's eve of their lives and all the subsequent chaos created. There's still luls between laughs but it's never boring and built on foundations that are as sturdy as they are familiar. Classic scenarios such as the trio squabbling over their different futures, constantly fumbling the attempts to get with someone they like and failing to get into an exclusive party are all accounted for here.

Elliot Edusah, Jordan Peters and Reda Elazouar are all very endearing from the start. Their chemistry is on point so they do feel like a close knit group of friends who are just a lot of fun to spend time with. The film strikes a nice balance in its screen time which allows all of them to get ample time in the spotlight as different scenarios require each of them to rise to the task. The arc they go is heartwarming as well with their friendship being tested and is stronger for it.

Reggie Yates' direction has an infectious energy that's sustained pretty consistently and is a generally solid directorial debut. It's present in both the occasional snappiness of Ash White's editing and the overall atmosphere of the film. Fittingly, there's also a good soundtrack which is also employed for comedic effect. Despite the presence of gaps between gags, the pacing is strong since no scene or extended joke ever feels like its overstaying its welcome and it's always a good time even at its lowest point.

I was looking forward to watching it cos it's definitely my era but it wasn't really funny, bit embarrassing at times and the quite a lot of the music wasn't out in 99 so not brilliantly accurate to the time.

Nostalgic references to late 90s era clothing, phones, vehicles & music. Not amazingly funny but good enough to sit and watch. Actors were good hope to see more of them and reggie.

This could have been great, but the script lets it down. The cinematography is brilliant. The colour grading and edit is fantastic. The story is meh, and the acting could be better. But, for a comedy film, it just wasn't funny.

Pirates is what you get if you buy your People Just Do Nothing from wish. If Human Traffic was written by a children's TV presenter and JLS fan, it would be this.

The storyline is fairly basic - a group of mates want to get in to a club night because one of them fancies a girl, and the film just follows their escapades through the evening. The ending is as underwhelming as the rest of the film.

There are a couple of laughs in it but the majority of the humour is clichéd, predictable and at times cringeworthy. A prime example is the moment in a record store when the lead character reads backstreet boys lyrics and everyone in the store cant quite remember the backstreet boys name.

The characters, whilst likeable, are not particularly engaging or believable. Whilst the name Pirates suggests it follows the lives of pirate radio DJs, this is only a minor element to the film. The 90s references again are very clichéd.

The only positive is the soundtrack. The film is full of old school garage anthems, very nostalgic. However, most of the tunes are also in People Just Do Nothing and the Big In Japan film at some point - which is far superior.

Even if you love Garage, give this one a miss.