Awaydays

'Awaydays' is not your typical football hooligan film, the sub-culture of football hooliganism in the early years of Thatcher's Britain is there to set the brooding scene, however it is evocative the homo-erotic relationship between Carty (Nicky Bell) and the eccentric Elvis (Liam Boyle) that takes centre stage and gives Paul Holden's film slightly more depth than simply being a film about men taking out their boredom in the form of fighting on a Saturday afternoon.

Paul Carty is a suburban male who is drawn towards the 'The Pack', a group of thugs who take their excitement from fighting on a Saturday afternoon all across Britain, through these encounters he grows closer and closer with a bohemian working-class character in Elvis. Elvis just wants to move away to Berlin and start a new life around people who understand him, while Carty just wants to find direction in his life after his mother's death. As they connect through their mutual love of Bowie, the Liverpudlian music scene and Art, they develop an increasingly complex relationship that is bordering on the homoerotic. It is this intricate bond between these two seemingly different, yet very similar and flawed 'men' that keeps the film ticking over. If you removed this key component then the film falls a little flat, with Kevin Sampson's script missing out many explanations to key elements such as why Carty is drawn towards the allure of the 'The Pack' in the first place and the death of John. With that said, it is hauntingly shot with a soundtrack that compliments Pat Holden's sombre directorial style, and even though at times he has a tendency to delve too much into the LSD-induced hallucinogenic state's of both boys minds, he does it with little expense to the viewer.

If you want a film that doesn't simply look at the male phenomenon of having a good scrap on a Saturday afternoon because we're all bored and working class zombies in a capitalist machine ('Football Factory', 'Green Street') then 'Awaydays' is for you, as it offers just that bit more and is akin to something of a 'football-love-story'.

Awaydays is a very misunderstood film in some respects. Had it been made in a time when we weren't already saturated with "football hooligan" films I genuinely believe it would've been much better received. Like Alan Clarke's 1988 "The Firm" which also uses football violence as a backdrop, Awaydays is much deeper than the likes of Football Factory. It's a story about two young lads both in that gap between being at school and entering the grown up real world if you like.

The two main characters are (I'm guessing) aged about 19 and both have dreams but neither has direction. What they have in common is they both want one another's life. It's almost tragic, because neither is going anywhere really.

After initially forming a close bond (and it's suggested that Elvis has romantic feelings towards Carty) their friendship soon starts to fall apart when the underlying reality that they are nothing alike surfaces. Neither are particularly likeable character's albeit in different ways. Elvis is probably the worse of the pair but has a very likeable side to him, he's the cool one of The Pack if you like, and the hooligan side of him is only one of a few personalities he seems to live.

Awaydays is gritty, and it's northern setting fits the story perfectly. I've read a lot of other reviews commenting on how fake the scouse accents are, but the film isn't set in Liverpool it's set on the Wirral, Birkenhead to be exact and I suppose given it's location it is a little like a Liverpool accent but slightly off if that makes sense?

Anyway, if you're expecting a football hooligan film you could be sorely disappointed. If you want to watch a decent coming of age drama with a great story I would highly recommend Awaydays.

If there's one thing I have learned watching British cinema it is this: for a country that gave name to the English language, they sure know how to ruin said language. I seriously almost turned the movie off within the first 15 minutes because I could barely understand what anyone was saying. I've spent enough time in the UK to get most of the slang and whatnot, but the accents of the two main characters are just too thick. Plus, as one reviewer has already pointed out, the movie is rather bland. I think it wanted to be a slightly more dramatic version of Green Street Hooligans, but it ended up as a similar movie without much of the fighting or compelling story.

To be honest with you, I really like the idea of completely ditching the relationship between the two main characters. It's nearly impossible to follow and pretty pointless. And while I usually enjoy watching Stephen Graham do his thing, this role is a bit of a waste for him.

All in all I'd find it hard to give this a good recommendation to a friend. It's not awful, but it just feels kind of pointless. If it was more an interesting snapshot of England in the 1970's (along with the hooligan aspect) it would've worked a lot better. Throw in all the melodramatic pointlessness and it becomes increasingly less so. I guess you could watch it if you didn't have anything better to do, but that's all the endorsement I'm willing to give it.

There seems to be some ill-will towards this tidy little parable and I cannot understand why.

Maybe the Joy Division fanboys feel the material is misplaced but I contend the great soundtrack is only used to set time and place and does not work in reverse like some latter day music vid.

Nor is it a 'hooligan' movie.

My own reaction was that this is a terrific effort, both from a committed cast and production side who nail the period in perfect British bleakness.

The football hooliganism feels like it is intended - a fantastical sideshow and not the main thrust of the film which centres around a lower middle-class lad's attempt for acceptance by a pack of working-class hooligans and the unrequited homosexual love between him and the pack's coolest member.

Carty, said middle-class lad, ultimately is a tourist, and the film conveys this superbly while whipping us along for the ride.

Pay little attention to those attempting to fold this boisterous creation into a pigeon hole; it stands on its own as a potent reflection of a sentimentally grim time in British culture.

Entertaining, admirable and bittersweet. Watch it.

Having read Kevin Sampson's thoughtful novel the screen version is something of a disappointment. Characterisation and motivation are largely over-looked in favour of scenes of adrenaline-charged violence. The clothing and style of the era are meticulously created for "The pack" (the hooligan group that Carty joins) but you have to question why the people they fight are generally older less fashionably dressed groups. The pack also emerge from every fight with barely an injury. The music itself is good but often misused - is Joy Division's delicately mournful "The Eternal" really an appropriate soundtrack to a group of bovver boys snarling their way down the street? Shane Meadows "This is England" offers a far superior vision of the period.