The Modern Way

That was s**t.

Unconvincing characters and honestly the worst acting I've ever seen. The one star is generous to be honest.

It was described as 'a gritty British drama'. Gritty!? When you've got 'this is England' to compare the film to its laughable! Laughed through the whole thing. I feel embarrassed for the makers of the film and everyone involved. I've watched episodes of Neighbours that were more gritty than this film.

I guess in a way the director's a genius because it really was spectacularly s**t.

I was a little unsure about what to make of this film when I watched the first 10 minutes, I very nearly wasn't going to stick it out. But after deciding to give it a chance, I'm glad I did, because it was a great effort by the filmmakers. Some class tunes, decent acting and a good script. This movie was a nice bit of escapism. Hard nut Terry Harrison has to help his late best friend's little sister as she seems to be doomed to go down the wrong path with a bunch of Skinheads. Then on the other end of the stick, you've got Young mod Frankie in debt with a load of bikers. Nice mix of the two stories. Loved the set up, could have been a bit more grittier, however, I enjoyed it.

Not a bad setup but a common plot without explanation of the motives behind behavior, e.g., why one character sold drugs, why the dealer (the one excellent performance) had the problem with getting his money on time, why the hero had a hero complex, why he had the distractingly weird fake hair that makes it hard to take him seriously... so much left out from the character development, and none of them is likeable. I couldn't really appreciate the nonsensical divide between the "Mods" and Rockers either... as if any one of them was modern (nah not really), or as if that's some kind of fixed rule everyone there knows. Not much to redeem this one: A producer wanted to play the hero so he made a low budget action flick pretending to have some kind of insight but struggling to create a story with genuine conflict or motive.

There's been a few mod based drama's released recently, and this is probably one of the better ones. Its a bit of a crime flick, but it has some personal drama, a bit of romance...and scooters.

Jake Henderson as the main mod Terry (also the writer), and the Bad guys Jack Parr and Nick Cornwall all did some nice acting, the younger leads weren't quite as good. Overall, most of it is respectable, and some decent dialogue. It is clearly restricted by budget (made for a tiny 50,000 pounds), but even so, I've seen movies with ten times the budget that were absolute rubbish.

Worth a look if you like skinhead mod dramas, or 80's retro flicks.

The acting was so wooden and I've seen better from high school drama clubs. The continuity was awful and they obviously only had budget for one joke! An hour and a half I won't get back!