Dir.
Pat Holden, UK, 2009, 105 mins
Cast:
Nicky Bell, Liam Boyle, Stephen Graham
Review by Carol Allen
The film and presumably Kevin Sampson's novel on which is based, is a classic "coming of age/rites of passage" story. Many of its elements, such as young gangs of football hooligans led by an older man and the music and club scene of the late seventies/early eighties, have been covered in other recent movies, but this brings them together in a different mix.
19 year old Carty (Bell) has a dull job as a junior civil servant, lives with his widowed dad and young sister and has some talent for art. He meets Elvis (Boyle) at a Bunnyman gig and immediately a strong friendship is born. Through Elvis he gets involved in a football gang of young men called The Pack, led by the older, freaky ex squaddie Gooden (Graham). Elvis though is somewhat ambivalent about The Pack, telling Carty they are a load of nobodies, as opposed to himself and Carty, whom he sees as someone he can finally talk to about his passions - art, music, poetry and suicide - and his dreams of their escaping together to a better life. Carty meanwhile is torn between his increasingly uncomfortable friendship with the possessive Elvis and the violent and hard man images of manhood he's being taught by The Pack.
The most interesting character is not Carty but Elvis, who also has a drugs problem and whose gay sexuality is hinted at but not obvious. For most of the story we're not totally sure - is he gay or just sensitive and artistic? There are some striking sequences, such as the gang and their worship of their false gods, as they march into battle against a rival gang whooping their war cry and the actual scenes of hooliganism and violence. There's also Carty's sad little back alley introduction to sex with an anonymous girl. The shooting of the city by night is impressive as is the period detail and the cool soundtrack of music by Joy Division, The Cure et al.
The film also has a good sense of Carty as the confused outsider. He is though a somewhat unappealing and unengaging character and a collection of contradictions, which don't quite convince or come together, while the ending of the film is very unclear, presenting us with several unresolved puzzles. The Wirral accents too are a bit over authentic, making the dialogue difficult to follow in places and the fact that Elvis and Carty have identical androgynous haircuts sometimes makes if a bit tricky to work out who is who in the often gloomy lighting. The characters' lifestyle is also pretty depressing, gloomy and rather grubby and there's little in the way of the humour or irony, which lightened for example the comparable environment of Trainspotting. And the story itself, certainly for older audiences, has more than a touch of the déjà vue. But in fairness, if you were young in 1979, the year when the story's set, you may well identify with it and enjoy it.
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