Mojo

'Mojo' is a story of fifties London, a world of budding rock stars, violence and forced homosexuality. 'Mojo' uses a technique for shooting the 1950s often seen in films that stresses the physical differences to our own time but also represents dialogue in a highly exaggerated fashion (owing much to the way that speech was represented in films made in that period); I have no idea if people actually spoke like this outside of the movies, but no films made today and set in contemporary times use such stylised language. It's as if the stilted discourse of 1950s screenwriters serves a common shorthand for a past that seems, in consequence, a very distant country indeed; and therefore stresses the particular, rather than the universal, in the story. 'Mojo' features a strong performance from Ian Hart and annoying ones from Aiden Gillan and Ewan Bremner, the latter still struggling to build a post-'Trainspotting' career; but feels like a period piece, a modern film incomprehensibly structured in an outdated idiom. Rather dull, actually.

I watched this film on late night TV and I was hooked. I didn't know Aidan Gillen at the time but his presence was dominant in the film. Whenever he laughs in the film, his eyes never laugh. His character is totally unpredictable - you never know what he's gonna do next. Gillen's acting makes the film tense.

And personally, it was a fun to watch Ricky Tomlinson playing his father.

I don't know how he did it but Jez Butterworth was able to collect some of the brightest British actors into his beautiful, little Debut Movie and what a movie it was!!! Set in 1950's Lonodn Soho, the story revolves around the lives of the people working in The Atlantis Club, one of the hippest joints around. Johnny Boy (Hans Matheson) is a sensation - he woos the girls, is a role model to the boys and can boogie-woogie like no other. Plus, he's making a whole lot of dough for the owner (Ricky Tomlinson). Thats when he starts to get some attention by local villain, Mr. Sam Ross (Harold Pinter) and has a proposition..... For me it's a wonderful film, and full of superb actors, for example, Ian Hart who seduces you into his world, one that you will never get out of. A gem of a movie which deserves a DVD release....NOW!!!!

I so thoroughly enjoyed this movie I thought the acting was excellent I found it very gripping and tense and unpredictable. Some one had made very negative comments about Ewen Bremner in their review...........they were really unfounded. I just wish some one would cast him as some psycho bad guy I'm fed up of seeing him as the inept fall guy there is much more to this actor.

I found the dialogue an authentic portrayal of wanna be thugs and small time crooks and hustlers wanting to believe they are bigger than they really are. Thoroughly entertaining, well written, well directed and well produced.

A clever, economical play founders and collapses in its author's adaptation, in the most obvious way-- Butterworth indulges a character's psychotic eccentricities until a viewer cringes each time he re-enters the picture. Too bad he knocks the film so badly out of whack-- the two stooges whose interplay so delighted NY stage critics become spear-carriers in this rewrite. Harold Pinter has a talent for playing creeps, but the films one redeeming feature is Ian Hart, a good actor who here has gravity and authority, but he can scarcely keep the camera, so inclined is Butterworth to let the nutcase role to show off some more.