Clubbed

source: Clubbed

i watched this movie out of boredom. this was nothing good on TV so i decide to rent a DVD. spent an hour in the shop looking for a good movie to watch. finally decided to get the matrix trilogy and since the store offered a promo to get one free when you rent 3. i started searching for another DVD. there was this one guy who was returning the dvds he rented. in my hurry, i just grabbed one the dvds he was returning. so that's ho i got this. and to my surprise, this movie turned out really, really great. the movie plays out to an inner emotion that most men don't usually admit. fear. especially the fear that you can not protect the one you love. it tells the story in a unique and very personal level. you almost feel like you connect to the character and each emotion he portrays is also your own. in the end, i felt really satisfied watching the credits. you know that you've watched something great when they roll the credits and you find yourself smiling. i felt good after watching this. unlike most high budget movies nowadays. which leave you dazed and confused and thinking, "what the heck just happened??" goes to show that being a low budget film with almost unknown actors in it doesn't mean that it can't be a great movie. sometimes, all it needs is a connection. you'll find plenty of that in this movie. now get your behind off your couch and watch this. :)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Danny (Mel Raido) is a lonely factory worker who tries to get by with his job and to be a good dad to his two daughters after a messy divorce from their mother (Maxine Peake.) But after an altercation with said daughters present at a Working Men's Club, he uses a trip to their dance class to take a glance at Louis (Colin Salmon) and his gang of hard men who train in the boxing gym/free weights section there and to train himself into a tougher, more assertive person. Before long he's taken the philosophies of Louis to heart and has joined him as a nightclub doorman as the 80s disco faze kicks in...but when associate Sparky (Scott Williams) tries to do a sideline in drug dealing, everything turns pear shaped. As Robert De Niro once stated in the film A Bronx Tale 'there's no bigger tragedy than wasted talent.' The writer of Clubbed had a good idea and a talent to make it into some sort of film...but without the ability, it seems, to put it all together into some sort of coherent film. As a brummie, some of the filming locations (especially a scene at the end outside the Ring O' Bells pub in Moseley!) were quite easy and fun to spot...but the dour look of the cinematography is really a downer on things. Some really poor acting, for instance lead actor Raido with an indecipherable accent that's all over the place, and a hammy script with some misfiring dialogue are bigger problems for the film though. More established actors like Peake and even telly favourite Neil Morressey are sidelined to very small supporting parts, while the disastrous Raido and Ronnie Fox's lame villain take centre stage. Williams does a poor man's Sick Boy from Trainspotting impression, leaving Salmon and Shaun Parkes seemingly the only performers left with any integrity from the whole thing, as the excessive, blood splattered violence (becoming a common trend for Brit flicks!) takes over. Truly a missed opportunity. **

Well what can you say about this film other than six of one and half a dozen of the other. With regards to the good, acting was good, story was good, music was good. The bad points were very sloppy stupid mistakes, The film never at all felt like the 80's it was sometimes hard to get the era. At one point the bouncer even says lets get away from the camera's, there were no camera's back then. The clothes felt mismatched the dancing in the club didn't look right. If you want a lesson on how to recreate the 80's look at "This is England". There were flaws in the ideology of the film and at the end you were left a little flat. Ideolgies of being passive and peaceful contradicted by violent behaviour. That does happen and people are like that but it just didn't work here. Parts of the film seemed real and the behaviour of characters was justified and other parts you were just left in disbelief at certain actions. Whatever this film was trying to achieve it failed and just became a testosterone battle of wills. OK this was the 80's people were angry people fought and these things did happen but if you are going to have that as a feature then at least do it properly, like The Firm for example. An Average 5 for me, this could have been a good film but production let it down.

I saw an official pre-release screening of Clubbed at the Prince Charles cinema in London's Leicester Square and like the majority of the capacity audience I queued up outside with, I was totally blown away. I didn't know what to expect as the director was making his Feature debut and on the surface it looked like a period Brit flick. However, anyone expecting a Guy Ritchie/Nick Love style movie set in the 80's would have been very mistaken, and gladly so! Clubbed contains everything that those dreadful British Crime films fails to have, and that's HEART...One might think that a film set on the club doors of a violent midlands city in the thatcher ruined 80's might be a perfect vehicle for a bone breaking blood fest, and on one hand it is, for there is no denying it is a violent film, but the violence in Clubbed (as opposed to other British crime films) is there because it 'has' to be and not because the writer/director had too many 'lovely' testosterone flakes for breakfast. It is there to depict the average night in the life of a club doorman. The violence is therefore a barred window into their souls, their heart. Usually, (much like bad love scenes) scenes of violence can seem like an interlude, a perfect time to nip out for pop corn...but not in Clubbed. I'm sure this is down to the life of the writer Geoff Thompson, a Bafta winning writer who apparently spent almost 2 decades on the doors. Indeed after the screening he took to the stage to inform us that everything we saw actually happened! Frightening really. Thompson, (apart from a rather slow and over narrated first 10 minutes) has scribbled an interesting script. It's basically a story about fear (something we all have) and how to conquer it. "What does one do when ones only fear...is fear itself"? Then we come to the acting, and in my opinion this is where the film really excels, this is where clubbed stands apart from the usual suspects. Sadly the film industry, especially here in Britain is far too formulaic and it's all too easy to imagine what clubbed might have looked like if the non-risk taking hands of Ritchie or Love (and others). Jason Stathem and Danny 'is' Dyer stamping their mockney hard man (really as hard as candy floss) reebok classics all over it. No, rest assured, there certainly wont be a free copy of 'Clubbed' with every issue of NUTS or LOADED magazine. Thank god the producers took the risks and cast an ensemble of absolute ability over marketability. What we see is easily Colin Salmons finest performance (and the closest to himself apparently), a wonderfully still leading presence in the shape of Mel Raido, a fine subtle hero etched out by Shaun Parkes, and the absolute screen stealing electricity of Scott Williams, a truly iconic performance that will surely be remembered for time to come in the manner of Begbee (or sick boy if only for the hair). I hope this film is marketed correctly and in the right category for if it is, it will surely be a hit and the producers deserve it to be just that. Look out for it...Oh, and did I mention the amazing soundtrack!

Gangster, geezer, Brit flicks have become some what of a tradition, in fact there's probably enough for a whole genre or at least a shelf in HMV. So when a friend of mine invited me to a preview screening of CLUBBED I was expecting it to have the same credentials, but scratch beneath the surface and here is a film with a heart all the way through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. It is an absolute gem! A depressed and downtrodden father already separated and scraping a living is beaten up in front of his kids. This incident spurs him on to confront his fears and he meets the guru of the piece Louis at a down at heel boxing gym who teaches him to stand his ground and not take any crap. The guys are all doormen at a local night club and Danny (our hero) soon becomes part of the gang and ready to do his stint on the door with resultant beatings and bloodstains. That's when things get really nasty... With stunning performances from a great home grown British cast (the guy who plays Sparky in particular really stands out) and an old school 70's and '80s soundtrack, make this is a stand out Brit flick which should be massive.

Went to see Clubbed mainly out of curiosity. I'd seen it compared to Trainspotting, Goodfellas, This is England and everything by Guy Richie. Couldn't work out how it could be like all this lot at the same time, and it isn't. It's not like anything else really, and I think that's why people have struggled to pigeon hole it. Just when you think you've got it sussed as you recoil in horror at some pretty graphic violence it throws another emotion at you, as you struggle with the lump in your throat, only to have that demolished by a laugh out loud moment. As if that wasn't enough, you're forced to think about what it really means to be a man - to face fears and stand up and be counted. There are no trite solutions here, just difficult questions with no back and white answers. All this is wrapped up in a tense, gripping story acted out in some of the best performances you'll see, and overlayed with a stunning 80's soundtrack. Definitely not to be missed!

Clubbed is a whopper of a big budget movie. It's many movies in one. It's a movie about boxing. It's a movie about the early eighties disco scene. It's a movie about mobsters, about the good guys and the bad guys. It's a movie about how drug dealing can destroy relationships and lives. There are some stomach churning images of violence and also some harsh language so be prepared for that, but there are also plenty of touching moments. It is about a father's relationship with his daughters, a flawed man's relationship with his pregnant wife, a fearful man's relationship with is ex-wife, and the camaraderie between grown men. Clubbed is a story about friendship, about fate, about revenge. It's a big movie in every way, as perfect as a crime epic can be. Truly great cinema!

Just watched this and was blown away, not sure when it is coming to cinema but can't wait to see it again. There are not many well-known names in the cast but seems to have found the best of the British talent not yet ruined by Hollywood. The initial story is about a factory worker called Danny who is down on his luck and close to suicide, he is recently divorced and even his kids start to see his weaknesses. When he starts to involve himself with some new friends at a boxing gym, who work as club doorman, and explores new relationships with people he can trust, his life starts to improve. With his new found lifestyle other stories start to evolve. Sparky is finding it hard to resist the pressure and the money coming from the local gangland boss Hennessey. Rob is on a crusade of removing the club of Hennessey's drug pushers and Louis, the head doorman tries to keep them in toe including his new found protégé Danny. I was not old enough to remember the eighties but the film felt embroiled with fashion and music that seemed to show the culture of the time. There are not many films I can remember getting goose bumps but I was effected several times throughout this film, which is even more surprising considering its genre. I have just checked out the films website and there is a trailer, so have a look.

To be honest, I reckon this knocks spots off any Guy Richie gangland type film. This is British Cinema at it's best and I was left wanting the film to just go on longer. The way it finishes with a blast of Bob Relf's northern soul number Blowing my Mind to Pieces just left you feeling excited about what had gone before. Yes it is brutal in places, funny too, as well as genuinely scary, not scary in the horror film type way but in the scared for the main characters. Brilliantly acted, the soundtrack of decent soul, Gwen Guthrie's Keep the Fire's Burning, Chic's Everybody Dance and even Willie Tee's One Way Street and the fact I found myself caring about the characters kept me hooked on the film right from the beginning. I can't recommend this film enough if you like a good hard film, well constructed with plenty of nostalgia thrown in.