Shoplifters of the World

Life before internet... before social media... WAS fun.

Cringiest dialogue ever in a film.

All of the forced lyrical quoting in normal conversation put my girlfriend in a coma.

The acting was mostly terrible, except for Joe Mangenelo's performance.

Your enjoyment of this film will probably depend on your awareness of the Smith's music. One of the best and most important bands to come out of England in the 1980s, but still (bizarrely) unknown by a lot of people. I personally enjoyed this film, but then I'm a big fan of the Smiths. I could pull the film apart and say it was a bit cheesy, a simplistic story, etc, but my enjoyment of the film and the music superseded all that. At the end of the day it's just nice to see this band get more recognition, especially in the 2020s.

If The Smiths were not the soundtrack to your life, at best this will be a. John Hughes-inspired 80's flashback film about that group of friends in the waning days of high school lamenting their future without each other.

If however your life made much more sense once you discovered Morrissey and Johnny and every coy twisted lyric that made you feel better about yourself and the world we live in, this is the movie that will make you laugh and cry and remind you that you are not alone, you were never alone and how at the worst of times, you can still sing your life.

This loving and respectful homage to everything The Smiths, with layers of references done in a period-piece style, should probably have been made decades earlier... but is well worth the wait.

Thank you to the entire team who gave this gift to those of us who will watch it over and over again.

But i watched the movie anyway.i got what i expected. A thin plot built around "true intentions", lol. But the music was enough to get me thru it, just as the Smiths got me thru the 80's. As clunky and forgettable as the plot was, the music and the record store and references took me back to a sacred time in my life when music meant everything and saved my soul. For that, i thank the filmmakers.