24 Hour Party People

Ignore the awful ads for 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (which are bollocks!), and run out and see the film while it is out in limited release. Anybody with an interest in Alternative Music in general, and the British Punk/New Wave & Rave scenes should see this examination of the past 25 years of British rock as filtered through the eyes of Factory Records' Tony Wilson.

Perhaps a bit too "inside" for general audiences, it is a rare example of a music based film that its actually good cinema to go along with it's raucous soundtrack. Well done, wry and entertaining. My only quibbles are that the filmmakers seem to be preaching to the converted. Except for the tragic Ian Curtis (JOY DIVISION), little attempt is made to inform the uninitiated as to why these bands mattered (NEW ORDER in particular, is just tossed around almost as a brand name, rather than a living breathing artistic unit). Also, we are constantly told how wonderful Manchester is as a city, but we are never really shown why. Steve Coogan's portrayal of Wilson really makes the film flow and live. It's not the kind of role that usually wins awards, but here's hoping some critics group somewhere notices. He's that fine.

So, the history is there, in a sort of hazy blotch of spurtches (those are real words, look them up), but of course it's told to us by one person, Tony Wilson, who everyone in the film repeatedly says is a c*nt, and potentially the worst kind, a charming c*nt that appears to know everything, is married multiple times to women he constantly cheats on, and appears to fail at everything except failure (he's apparently married to a former Miss UK as of the film's making). His specialty is talking out of his ass and spotting the next big thing in music. So, we're treated to the Sex Pistols, we're treated to Joy Division and New Order, the Happy Mondays, bands the kids don't know they know unless they know they need to. It's told tongue-and-cheek, and you know it must embrace the spirit of it because there are multiple cameos by the people who were a part of it. It also comes with a light of mockumentary about it, as though it needs to make fun of itself to keep you off about whether this or that happened that way or if it happened at all (and sometimes they will straight up tell you it didn't). A little too self-aware to be a masterpiece, but it's revetting and loads of fun to watch, all the same.

This movie is quite hyperbolic about the Manchester scene which is portrayed with so much style, energy, humor, and gutty performances, that even if you weren't a fan of Joy Division & Happy Mondays, this particular musical revolution is extolled on a par with Memphis early 50's, the whole of UK 1963-65, San Francisco 1966-67, or Austin 1972-74. I wasn't a fan of those Manchester bands, but I really enjoyed all of the music in this film. And Steve Coogan's performance and the structure of his charismatic part are wonderful. And very funny.

Like "SLC Punk" and movies like "Rude Boy" and the Sex Pistols movies, "24 Hour Party People" captures the anger of the times and incredible energy of that socio-musical upheaval, and ultimately the sadness at the inevitable passing of a bright moment in popmusic history. When Coogan/Wilson brags about the birth of the rave culture in his club in his beloved city, taking credit for another major movement, I didn't feel his pride or excitement, only that sense of sadness at the techno-evolution of punk...

This is, was and forever will be one of my favourite films of all time. A joyous love letter to the music, magic and madmen of Manchester, 24 Hour Party People is utterly, utterly exhilarating. Even if you don't know your New Order from your Durutti Column, you'll be hard-pressed not to get a kick out of Michael Winterbottom and Frank Cottrel Boyce's freewheeling depiction of a great time in pop culture.

In a nutshell, this is the story of a scene, a scene that grew out of the british punk explosion of the mid seventies. Inspired by the rising vibe in his home town, television presenter Tony Wilson, with the aid of colleagues Rob Gretton and Alan Erasmus created Factory Records. Factory is, as described in the film "an experiment in human nature", with no written contracts (barring one written on a napkin in Wilson's own blood) and total creative freedom for its acts. From the mid seventies to the early nineties, Factory launched a barrage of fresh and exciting talent on an unsuspecting world, ranging from punk (Joy Division, later to become New Order) to house (A Guy Called Gerald) and dance (Happy Mondays). At the centre of it all was Wilson, all the while balancing his empire building with a steady day job with Granada Television.

Winterbottom's film crams sixteen years of music history into under two hours, using and appropriately chaotic mix of storytelling techniques to rocket the story along. It's by no means an accurate account, (just listen to the commentary by Wilson on the DVD) but encapsulates the spirit of the Manchester Movement beautifully. The plot itself is split into two halves. Firstly, the early punk days, spearheaded by a promising quartet called Joy Division. Joy Division were the first notable artistic success of the label, but were hindered by controversy (the name was derived from the Nazi division of women who were used in an attempt to create the master race), gigs that often degenerated into brawls and most crucially, a talented, but troubled, severely epileptic lead singer, one Ian Curtis. The rapid rise and even faster fall of Joy Division anchors the first half.

The second half sees us bear witness to the birth of rave culture, aided along by one of Wilson's acts, the Happy Mondays. Formed by brothers Shaun and Paul Ryder, they blazed through Manchester in a blizzard of coke and heroin and shaped dance music in no small way. Oh, and they pretty much helped to run Factory into the ground.

Bouncing from hilarious comedy (a great deal of it improvised)to genuine poignancy (the decline of Curtis is heartbreaking stuff) the film is an utter triumph of wit, wonderment and technique. As Wilson, comedian Steve Coogan is nothing short of dynamic. Teetering on the right side caricature (and injecting a great deal of his Alan Partridge persona in to the mix) Coogan is the lynchpin for an otherwise wildly chaotic narrative. The entire cast do sterling work impersonating the Manchester luminaries of old (and by old, I mean young, before the drugs and booze). From Danny Cunningham's uninhibited Shaun Ryder to John Simm's gentle Bernard Sumner and Andy Serkis's fearsome Martin Hannet, (an arguably more fearsome character than Gollum if you ask me....) they're all great. But best of all is Sean Harris, who is simply unforgettable as Ian Curtis. He's so dead-on accurate its almost scary, from the haunted eyes and cheeky humor (witness his first meeting with Wilson) to the eccentric dance moves, its a performance that deserves every award in the book.

Oh and the music. Well if you're already a fan, I sure as hell don't need to say it, do I?

As it was, so it goes and so do I. See this movie before you die. Go on, rent it tonight, rent it now, buy it if you have to or if you're really desperate, just steal a copy. But please, see this movie, you won't regret it.

24 Hour Party People is the story of Factory Records, a defiantly eccentric independent record label based in Manchester, England, which discovered acts as influential and diverse as Joy Division and the Happy Mondays.

The film is shot in mock-documentary style and narrated by Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), the founder of Factory. Coogan portrays Wilson's double life as music svengali and cheesy local TV reporter to brilliant comic effect. Although Brits will draw the inevitable parallels between Coogan's Wilson and his ultra-naff TV persona, Alan Partridge, Coogan actually has Wilson off to a tee. Arrogant and pompous, Cambridge-educated Wilson is master of the pseudish sound bite (when he realises they have no tickets for a concert in his nightclub, he retorts `Did they have tickets for the Sermon on the Mount? Of course they didn't, people just turned up because they knew it would be a great gig'). But he also has a perceptive eye for the zeitgeist and his vision to create the Hacienda club transformed Manchester into Madchester, for a brief time the music capital of the world.

The story really starts with an early Sex Pistols gig in Manchester, attended by only 42 people, most of whom went on to have an influence on the Manchester music scene of the next 10 years. Wilson was in the audience, together with members of the band who went on to form the brilliant post-punk pioneers Joy Division. The first part of the film is really focussed on them and their manager, the aggressive and cantankerous Rob Gretton ( played by Paddy Considine), and their producer, the irascible acid-casualty Martin Hannett (another superb cameo by Andy Serkis) - both of whom are no longer alive. Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis, is portrayed so accurately by Sean Harris that it's positively eerie, and the scenes of the band playing in rundown venues seem remarkably true to life and capture effectively the rawness and intensity of their live performances. The film also deals, rather insensitively, with the death of Curtis, who's feet we see swinging after he has strung himself up on a rope in his house. This segues uncomfortably into a town crier announcing his death to the world, and ends with scenes showing Curtis's body in a coffin at the crematorium.

From then on, the story continues with Joy Division's reincarnation as New Order and the building of the Hacienda nightclub, and the sometimes disastrous business decisions made by Wilson and Factory. When New Order released Blue Monday, the record sleeve was so expensive to produce they lost money on every copy sold. The single went on to become the biggest-selling 12' of all time, paradoxically crippling Factory in the process. The first nights at the Hacienda were also calamitous, with bands playing in front of single-figure audiences. Eventually however, the druggy indie dance kings Happy Mondays arrived on the scene, and acid house was born. Suddenly the Hacienda was the place to be and the Madchester rave scene became famous all over the world. The scenes of drugs-and-sex-excess on the Monday's tour bus and the re-creation of the Hacienda club nights are superbly portrayed.

The final part of the film tells how gang violence led to the closure of the club and the drug-riddled misadventures of the Mondays, especially their singer Shaun Ryder, led to their downfall and had severe financial implications for Factory Records (Wilson had inexplicably sent them to Barbados to record their last Factory album). Eventually, Factory was sold, lock, stock and barrel, to another label (who were perturbed to find Wilson had not signed any contracts with any of the Factory bands, effectively giving the artists total creative freedom).

24 Hour Party People is a real rollercoaster ride. There are some brilliant acting performances, punctuated by cameos from real members of the Manchester music scene (such as Howard Devoto and Mark E. Smith). The merging of legend and reality may make it difficult for people unfamiliar with events to work out what actually happened. But this is no accurate, austere documentary, but a touching, sometimes surreal, and often very, very funny, anarchic portrayal of a time and a place and it's music. Oh, and of course, the soundtrack is fantastic.