Twin Town

Twin Town_720p(480P)

source: Twin Town

Wonderful movie. Just brilliant. Fantastic script, odd , quirky , original and hilarious. Great to see some movies in Wales for a change. I am not Welsh but always find them hilarious weird and very unique. Best Welsh film Zulu great acting too from Rhys Ifans, his brother and Keith Allen. Enjoye the Phil Bennett scenes, the bath scenes, the poodle scenes, the caravan scenes, the nightclub scenes, the coffin sea burial scenes, the singing scenes, the quiz questions, the car chases, the old lady buying drugs scenes, was she talking welsh or what? Bryn Cartwright was great too. Steaky steak line was great Great singing great lines great script great characters Great ending

Whereas the two cities in the Central Lowlands of Scotland had Trainspotting, then Wales's second city of Swansea had Twin Town. It's own director Kevin Allen had a bit part in Trainspotting and Twin Town was his attempts to bring the former into Ugly City-Lovely City (a reference by Dylan Thomas). This film looked to be promising with the locals but the cinema regulars claim it not be good because it contains too much bad language but as the hit movie Trainspotting is included with swear words, then they have not seen the latter. The plots and dialogues of Twin Town are quite acceptable but it's success is no match for Trainspotting. Rhys Ifans & Co delivers some excellent performances throughout the film's length. There's some insights of seedy scenes included and driving stolen cars for the reel streets locations around that era certainly had a high rate of car crime. Overall, it's not too bad a film. It certainly does have local cult following.

Some like to call Twin Town the "Welsh Trainspotting". I would disagree - while it has some similarities such as prolific drug use and a bleak portrayal of a city in the United Kingdom (in this case Swansea, with bits of Port Talbot), the two films are quite different. Twin Town takes place in 90s Swansea, where brothers Julian (Llyr Ifans) and Jeremy Lewis (Rhys Ifans) live a carefree existence smoking weed and driving stolen cars at high speed through the residential areas of Swansea. Their father, Fatty (Huw Ceredig) does work for local businessman and small-time gangster Bryn Cartwright (William Thomas), and falls from a ladder and breaks his leg while working on a roof. Bryn refuses to give the family compensation for Fatty's injury, and the brothers take revenge by urinating on his daughter, Bonny (Jenny Evans) during a singing competition at the local (sadly, now-defunct) nightclub, Barons. This starts off an escalating feud which involves the decapitation of a poodle, and the surprisingly massive explosion of a caravan, culminating in some rather brutal justice inflicted on Bryn and his partner in crime, corrupt cop Terry Walsh (Dougray Scott). I'm not going to go and spoil the entire thing, but what I will say is that things take a rather dark turn, with Julian and Jeremy showing a rather unexpected creative mind for murder, especially given that they appear to be just permanently wasted. As a Swansea resident, I have to say that while the drug use in the film is exaggerated, it does capture the seedier side of Swansea quite well. The scenes of Swansea's nightlife are perhaps too accurate (anyone who has been to Wind Street at its worst will know what I mean), and the accent and rather, erm, colourful way that the characters speak is spot on. It also, however, captures some of the more beautiful aspects of the city, namely its heart (although the Lewis family are dysfunctional, they have a very warm family dynamic), and also the beautiful scenery in the area (visible in the panoramic shots of the city), and I think that any Welshman couldn't watch the funeral scene at the end as the choir sings "Myfanwy" without wiping away a tear. I saw that the film got quite a few bad reviews on the net (and indeed on here). I think possibly some might not get the accents, or indeed the feel of the film - ultimately, to really enjoy the film, you have to have lived in Swansea to get the most out of it, as if you have, a particular location or character will tie in with certain memories you have of the place, whereas otherwise, it might not. It's most definitely worth checking out, and add another star if you're from Swansea!

Twin Town has to be seen to be believed! It can make you laugh harder than you could ever imagine, mainly because the characters are like people that you know and love. It is a story of life in Swansea, South Wales... a new and different culture for some of us. The scenery is gorgeous, the accents are char- ming, and the script is clever and incredibly funny!!! Rhys Ifans and Llyr Evans (brothers in reality) are Jeremy and Julian Lewis, two boys who are out for revenge after their dad is injured at work and his boss refuses to compensate him. What follows is some of the crudest, most off-the-wall humor in the history of film. (Look for Fergie the poodle and the wiener-wagon scene --- I laughed out loud!) Suprisingly, there are some serious moments as well, and you may find yourself wiping away a tear. This is when you find your identification with the Boys, and the movie becomes yet even more wonderful. All in all, this is my favorite movie because of the wonderfully warm and funny cast and the never-say-die attitude of the Lewis brothers. Don't miss it!

The biggest gripe I had about this movie... besides that it really kind of sucked... was that it claimed (on the poster, in the ads, etc.) to be from the creators of Trainspotting. Now, forgive me if I nit-pick, but Irvine Welsh 'created' Trainspotting, and he had NOTHING to do with this picture; neither, really did Danny Boyle or Andrew Macdonald. Which means I went to this flick expecting some sort of spin off of Trainspotting (not a re-make or a sequel or anything, but a movie with the flavor of Trainspotting)... which it wasn't. This isn't false advertising I'm claiming... but stupid advertising! The by-line puts you into a specific mind-set (call me brainwashed, if you must) and then the movie delivers something totally different, unexpected, and stupid. What gives!? Why do that!? The movie is far too shallow. It isn't even deep enough to provide plot holes... it's just there, like a puddle; sure, maybe you want to jump around in it for a second, but I don't want to spend two hours standing in a puddle... at least not this one. There are moments of mild entertainment, but without anything cohesive, they're just not worth it. I didn't care at all about anyone anywhere remotely near this thing, and left just wondering who in the hell these little smart-asses thought they were.

It suddenly occurred to me while watching this film that, whether by accident or design, I've seen a whole lot of films that star Rhys Ifans. His brother Llyr appears with him here, the lesser-experienced brother that had previously only appeared in Ymadawiad Arthur and has made no further films to date. He does adequately, yet watching this - Rhys' second cinema film - it becomes clear he's the star. Off-puttingly touted as the "Welsh Trainspotting" - because who wants imitations? - this is really nothing of the sort, and is far more impressive than you would expect. Already three years old, it has yet to be shown on British terrestrial television and nor do I expect it ever will be. It's content is morally vacuous, including police corruption, joyriding, drug taking, animal killings and murder. Peppering the script are a man who breaks his wife's nose, massage parlour brothels, female * and almost continuous usage of the f-word. If that hasn't already put you off, this is a tale that features two bath-sharing brothers, who, after being refused compensation for their father's broken leg, take revenge by urinating on their enemy's daughter. However, Twin Town, bizarrely, never really offends, as it is done in, despite the subject matter, a good-natured tone. And I did have to smile at the real-life names of the dogs that feature in this tale of cocaine dealers - Charlie and Snowy. I wonder if that was intentional? What really grips about Twin Town is that, in the age of the depleted UK film industry, it lacks the desperate mugging and dead laugh areas that characterise the 1990s British "comedy". A desperate, "please love us America, please give us your box office, we're begging", which is normally prevalent in the genre, is almost wholly absent here. (For further information on such a desperate breed, see Rhys' first major film: "Notting Hill") Okay, there is the overstatement that sees a male voice choir singing Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime", or the twins joyriding their own father's hearse, but generally this film, despite the extremities of it's plot, does keep an eye towards realism and naturalistic dialogue. And the overlong, feeble "comic pauses" that normally kill off the rotting carcasses of British Film are nowhere to be found, due to a constantly moving, frenetic pace. The only down side to all this is that, apart from Rhys who has appeared in, to date, ten movies after this, the rest of the crew involved haven't achieved success. In fact, this was the first feature of the two writers involved and they haven't written another film since, presumably due to its lacklustre showing at the box office. A great shame, as Twin Town is well worth watching.

Obviously a lot of effort and money went into this movie, the acting, the visuals; unfortunately the director thought that he could do without a plot or dialogue, apparently on account of that it is Welsh and riding on the wake of Trainspotting. The result is the cinematic equivalent to a Ferrari Testarossa without wheels, nice to look at yet bitterly disappointing.

I'm nothing if not open-minded and so when I saw that "Twin Town" was scheduled to be broadcast on British Channel 4 television and having read the many favourable comments of IMDB reviewers I decided to "give it a chance" despite my reluctance to devote time to view which had been prompted by the unanimous thumbs-down given it by local critics. I mean: bent coppers; wild and wacky joy-riding twins; revenge plot; karaoke acts; world record for use of word f**k in a movie. How can it fail? I'm still asking myself that question. Much as I regret to say it and, while I won't go so far as to say that it was a waste of two hours, (actually it's not that long), I have to say that this film is a total mess. Almost uniformly lousy acting, witless dialogue, erratic pacing, more boringly inappropriate use of the word f**k than I've heard in any movie. And an ending which was signposted about 5 minutes into the film. Even the much lauded "twins": rather than being wild and wacky, in their limited time on-screen more often than not they came across as being about as charismatic and threatening as wet blankets. And the sex bits reminded me of those awful "Confessions" movies starring Robin Askwith (maybe that's coloured my judgment of the movie) Despite my fingers being ready and willing to type a longer review my brain just refuses to send any further list of defects to them. Best bit and maybe only redeeming feature: When the bent copper beat up a boy's band member because they wouldn't get out of the road.(I laughed out loud!!) Or maybe that was because of the idea that scene gave me: what about enlisting the entire crew to give the same treatment to Boyzone, WestLife and the rest of the collective monstrosity known as Boy Bands. Because they'll hardly be snowed under with job offers after this. I won't be giving it another chance which saddens me to say, speaking as a fellow Celt. Sorry, boyos its V for Vile!