Metacritic reviews

Careful and deliberate character work in the script paints a striking picture of two friends who are outcasts in their little world yet still find a way to integrate into a community.

Beats is a truly heartfelt rites-of-passage tale — an immersive, intoxicating portrayal of the rave scene at its peak.

It’s absolutely a period piece (heightened by being in black and white), but its humanity is ageless, serving up an irresistible amount of thrills, spills and jaw-aches.

An infectiously enjoyable slice of knockabout nostalgia that wears its Trainspotting heritage proudly on its rough-edged tartan sleeve.

Beats brilliantly captures the nervy, joyful terror of turning up at a derelict warehouse equipped with a soundsystem and woefully inadequate toilet facilities. And it’s a testament, too, to the uncomplicated platonic love between two lads who both know, deep down, that they are too flakey to stay in contact.

It’s a terrific little film that combines the earthy humour and honesty of a Shane Meadows movie with an unexpected expressionistic section – flooded with colour – that channels the boys’ joyful dancefloor abandon.

Welsh’s intentions are clear and his passion is palpable.

Beats proceeds to give a dying scene its euphoric due, in a dazzling digression from stage-based form.

Compared with Mia Hansen-Løve’s resonant French house drama Eden, or Michael Winterbottom’s kaleidoscopic 24 Hour Party People, these beats sound tinny.

Beats catches the misery and desperation that powered rave culture and the era of DayGlo shell suits. The disappointment is that the Welsh strips all the color out of Hurley's vibrant play, which he originally staged with a live DJ accompaniment.