Weekender

A short satisfying romp. Deceptively satisfying as the ending is not so. I really got to like the characters and would have hoped for a better resolve, alas the pill bashing, money grubbing, bouncer smashing film came to a very bad ending.

Fine good-looking believable cast and a great development of the relationships between characters, especially between Matt and Dylan who I enjoyed watching as a fun boyish pair. There was a lot of good music, pretty girls and heavy drugs which made for an exciting yet hardly novel adventure.

I'm not sure if I recommend this film as it's finalle isn't really a finalle atall. It's like a really well built up tune that once fully ascended drops into nothing but a whistle and rolling credits.

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, until they spot a marketing opportunity in the shape of the emerging acid house/rave culture that is springing up in towns and cities across the UK, with hordes of disenfranchised, disaffected young folk breaking into abandoned warehouses to get off their faces and dance the night away, only for the authorities to clamp down on them. Dylan and Matt propose the biggest rave yet, and enlist the help of a top DJ to help see them over. However, it's not long before drugs arrive on the scene and the criminal element involved plunge the lads into a new and dangerous world that threatens to destroy everything they've worked to build.

Ever since it arrived over from Ibiza in the late 80s, rave culture has played it's inimitable part in the music, fashion and style of a certain generation of young people, and what it went to lead on to was arguably it's greatest achievement. Weekender attempts to be a story based around this phenomenon and is squarely aimed at the audience the film is depicting. At the beginning it starts out as sort of style over substance, opening with the start of what promises to be a funky, lively soundtrack featuring just the sort of tunes that made that period in musical history so memorable.

The soundtrack remains the best asset of the film, but it's worth sticking with the story, because although it retains it's sense of being frenetic and sort of jumbled and incoherent, it does develop into a more engaging portrayal of two lads living in a very recent time, caught up in an emerging world with unexpected dangers cropping up in it. The manner of the film is in line with it's style, with it's sped up shots and blurry camera moments giving it it's added authenticity.

Performances wise, O' Connoll is convincing in another notch to his resume, while Hughes, best known as the bully in The Inbetweeners, is pretty decent support. Emily Barclay and Zawe Ashton are the chicks on display, and they make their mark on the film.

The problem with Karl Golden's film is it sometimes (most disasterously at the beginning) gets lost in it's own style and doesn't have an engaging story to follow. But it still comes off as a fairly decent thriller, inspiringly set against the back drop a lot of people young back then can remember. ***

I saw this film in the local DVD hire shop and thought 'wow' this looks good acid house music, 1990, the guy out of Eden lake, it should be good. This film could have been amazing,there were too many anachronisms (the phone box, the bank notes, the vehicles that can be seen on the Amsterdam scene and the majority of the soundtrack! notably Nakasaki from 1995 ). The warehouse scenes were poor, no gurners, no sweaters no wide eyed crazy dancers. The costumes could have been better I was expecting acid face t shirts, shell suits, baggy jeans and some curtains or mushroom haircuts. On the plus side I liked Dylan's hair do, the acting was good from the main characters, John the rat and his mob looked the part. younger audiences will probably enjoy this but as someone who was around in 1990 wearing a shell suit and listening to tunes on a Walkman I wanted more.

I don't think they nailed the drug scene accurately, but its a cool film none the less.

I liked the music and sound track.

I liked the venues and different locations.

The plot was easy to follow and I didn't get bored at all.

Difficult to compete with the original Human Traffic movie but I collect clubbing movies so I can happily add this one to my movies shelf ;-)

I don't really have much more to say about it. i have no idea why I must write 10 lines of review.

A poor attempt at an edgy film.

The plot wasn't gritty enough to be passed off as a druggy film and with some areas, particularly the acting of a few, felt unrealistic.

A film to have on in the background, nothing more.