The Riot Club

This is a typical gritty Film Four presentation. A look at the seedier side of society groups and making us look at a side of people that we like to believe doesn't exist really but deep down we know they do. Very gritty , very thought provoking watch this knowing that you will be shocked .

A secret Oxford University club where if you have to ask to join you can't be a member who are all from affluent backgrounds and think they are better than anyone beneath their social standing.

We see how the club begins from its origins to modern day with the group needing new recruits . We see the process and induction of the new members and quickly realise that they are raucous to the extreme. They are preparing to book the annual meal and have to leave Oxford and end up in a beautiful family orientated gastro pub.

As the drink flows and the drugs are consumed the behaviour of the group becomes excessive. A pre arranged prostitute refuses to co-operate which infuriates the members further.

A violent assault tests their loyalty to each other and is played out with the involvement of outside parties.

The Riot Club is for posh boys, who all attend Oxford university. There are only ten of them at a time and they have a notorious reputation, and best of all? They are looking for new members. So I suppose the reel question is will this be Dirty Pretty Things or just Filth? The Riot Club is a film that has a feeling of disappointment, not from me, but from itself, it feels like a movie that had more to give us and wanted to but can never quite get into the right gear with it's own inner mechanics, it's a film that comes across as unhappy with it's own final piece.

The film has a lot of things going for it despite this, it has an INCREDIBLE cast of young men, the whole premise is pitched just right and when it needs to the tension is palpitatable, So why isn't it a better movie? I think we need to take a second look at this to get to the bottom of it properly.

The Riot Club begins as it means to go on, within the first 5 minuets we are shown hard drug use, strong sex scenes, violence and bad language, it never tries to hide or conceal what it is, but then I suppose this is where the problem starts because a movie like The Riot Club (much like A Clockwork Orange really), tries to live in two camps at once, those being the one of class commentary and the other of exploitation cinema. Nobody is going to defend The Riot Club for not being an exploitation film.

I think the thing that The Riot Club lacks most noticeably when compared to both the trailer and the general air of the film is ferocity. When I sat down to watch The Riot Club I expected darkness and debauchery, and what I ended up getting was something mildly unsettling, sure there are flurries of vindictiveness in the film, but they are in the trailer. I wanted to see a film that would justify the tenseness that I felt during some of the periods of the movie, but instead what I came out with was a feeling of confusion to what the hell happened to it all.

The Riot Club works perfectly to a pint, and then during the third act totally loses its way and decides it's run out of time anyway, so brings everything to a screeching halt almost mid flow. That is a crime I can't forgive, to deny me a justified ending to a film I was largely enjoying is wrong.

I feel it goes without saying that film has a superior showing of young up and comers, but what I feel should be said is that aside from the main male dominated teens, there is a surprising mix of other actors and actresses too, this is always a welcomed surprise.

At times The Riot Club is funny, at times it's uncomfortable but it never reaches the depths it desires or needed to for me. The talents on display are strong and that's what lifts it above the mundane.

My two main takeaways are that 1. British boys all look the same 2. This is Lord of the Flies 2.0

It's hard to distinguish what's fact and what's fiction in The Riot Club. On one side secret societies will always have their debauchery and initiations, so a level of trouble-making's to be expected. On the other, TRC exaggerates the misbehavior of a notorious Oxford University group. It's a not so fine line between the two. One single dinner event escalates out of control, subjecting the divide between the rich and the working class. The Riot Club's an infuriating watch, with the majority of the club's members basking in their 'importance', looking down on those they believe to be beneath them. The performances are solid, especially from the club's newest members (Sam Claflin and Max Irons), but two thirds of this film is spent focusing on their petty squabbles than relatable facets.

The Riot Club is an exclusive hedonistic drinking club in Oxford University with a long tradition. The group needs two new members to complete the ten minimum. Alistair Ryle and Miles Richards are new students with connections. Miles starts a relationship with Lauren from the working class. Right winger Alistair gets mugged and then recruited into the group. Harry Villiers is an older member whose ancestor was the original Lord Riot. James Leighton-Masters is the group's president. Hugo Fraser-Tyrwhitt is Miles' former classmate. They weren't close but Hugo remembers Miles. Their annual dinner at a country restaurant causes mounting rowdiness and chaos.

These are entitled rich brats. None of them are that compelling as individual characters. Most of them are too interchangeable. Their hi-jinx are annoying and not particularly imaginative. It's a lot of drinking and destruction. Throwing in Natalie Dormer as a hooker does help. There is boring boorish talk and a couple of interesting moments. The scene with Lauren in the restaurant is wrong. It's excusable that Miles is drunk but Lauren is too slow on the uptick. Even then, Miles can't be that weak-minded. It makes no sense that he doesn't leave to chase after Lauren other than for the sake of the story. There are a few clunky moments. It's unbelievable that the guys don't do more than a night in the drunk tank. They walk out with their clothes which should be taken as evidence. The only way to make it all work is if the cops are bought off right away. The possibility is there but it's not sharp enough.