Rude Boy

Brilliant, if you forget the narrative and focus on the clash footage featured. It has the right message, punk is opposed to racism, which at the time was not always the case, there was lots of Nazi punks. I would have liked to have seen more footage of the race riots. The recent death of Joe Strummer adds a degree of poignancy to this wonderful relic of late-1970s London. Rude Boy distills the essence of the Clash in their prime. I spend hours watching the extras which feature over 20 life clash performances, including four different white riots! Any clash fan needs to own this DVD, also recommended: west-way to the world, and essential clash.

D

...despite copying the musicians in the studio trope, the porn-shop as symbol of capitalism and the black/white subplot. However "Rude Boy" perhaps deserves a little more attention than it seems to have received.

As a 'proper movie' it's kind of a washout. Aiming for an improvised cinema-verite feel, it's hamstrung by a fatal lack of tension, having apparently been assembled by people with little grasp of editing, narrative or any kind of cinematic style. Despite this, the concert footage of The Clash is indispensable to anyone with an interest in the era, and shows why they were one of the all-time great rock and roll bands. We have very few 70's punk bands recorded properly on film as opposed to video and the difference in quality is striking. Also, Joe Strummer's death is still quite recent as I write and seeing him here in his prime is poignant in the extreme.

In general there are very few film documents of punk. We have Jarman's "Jubilee" which was more of a neo-Elizabethan fantasia, "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" with its McClarenite rewriting of history and come-lately nonsense like "Breaking Glass". "Rude Boy" at least doesn't fall into any narrative clichés (if only by barely having a plot) and by its very lack of creative flair may succeed best in giving a picture of the time. For example, unlike the myth-making of the likes of "Sid and Nancy", this shows punk gigs as they actually were - largely populated by lads with feather-cuts and tank tops.

By concentrating on hanger-on Gange instead of the band itself, the filmmakers turn the story into one of the relationship between the band and its fan-base - pointed up by having Strummer sing "All The Young Punks" right through in the studio without the backing track to distract us from the lyric.

The commentator who said this did not give a true picture of the politics of the time is surely wrong. I was there and it seems pretty accurate to me. We see the resurgent National Front, the Anti-Nazi League, the bullishness and racism of the police at the time (which would shortly lead to the Brixton riots) and the rise of Thatcherism out of the bankrupt Butskellite consensus. Ray Gange's character in the film seems intended to represent the British white working class at the time - confused, politically disengaged and borderline racist, the attitudes which led to the Thatcher victory we see at the end of the film. The left, variously represented by the SWP (bureaucratic) and Strummer (by turns tokenistic and diffident) fails to capture Gange's imagination and it is the right who seize on the desire for change and turn it to their own advantage.

Rude Boy is a strange curate's egg, then. There may have been a really good film struggling to get out of this morass, but we'll never know. The special edition DVD has a "Just Play the Clash" function which lets you view only the concert footage and I suspect this will get a lot of use.

Rating? 3/10 for the story, 10/10 for the music.

I was torn about what rating to give this as it's not without it's merits. The film works as a time capsule of late 70's Britain with real life footage of National Front protests and anti-fascist counter protesters clashing with police. The concert footage of the Clash in action is undoubtedly the highlight. As a narrative led film it's kind of all over the place. Ganges unsympathetic main character fails to hold the viewers interest. He basically wanders the film in an alchoholic haze, can in hand. His character is utterly useless in his capacity as a roadie for the band and leads to some continuity confusion when two other roadie characters are talking about him as though he's gone yet the next scene has him still there. The sub story about a group of black youths falling foul of the law which seems to have no connection to the main Clash story is puzzling as well. It appears to be a critique of police harassment of black urban youth yet the featured characters are actually portrayed as engaging in criminal activity so it kind of misses the point.

Rude Boy (1980) follows the life of a youth who dreams about working for his favorite band THE CLASH. The band THE CLASH co-star in this picture and some of their live performances is caught on film. This movie was made before they made it big across the pond. The band is shown working on their second album GIVE THE ENOUGH ROPE. A colleague of their's John Lydon once said that the Clash didn't know how to pace themselves, they would be tired after the first four or five songs. Well, he was right. Some of the concert footage shows, the band appeared to be sluggish and tired in some of their performances. I heard that the band wasn't happy with the way they were portrayed and neither was the young man who played the wannabe roadie. I found the band to be very interesting and I became a Joe Strummer fan after I saw this movie.

The film-makers also capture the turmoil that was occurring on the streets of London during this time. Their was a lot of rioting and protesting. They also capture the collapse of the Labour Party and the rise of the Conservatives. Another one to seal in a time capsule. Interesting, recommended for Clash fans.

This film is interesting on lots of levels despite also being a bit rubbish! The historical value is high, an excellent depiction of the time. The Clash footage is great, the sound is really good. The character Ray is very believable and a realistic portrayal of the hangers on that bands attract and can't seem to get rid of! Even though the acting ain't great. So while most of the film's value is historic and sociological in nature, it does hold the attention.

Well done to London Live for finding this one!