dunfincin

I think I am writing the first review of this film. I have followed modern music throughout most of my life and whilst I had heard of the group Killing Joke, I knew nothing about them and was not familiar with any of their music. Having seen this film, I am not much better off. I am sure that we have all watched documentaries about pop groups - their formation, successes and failures, the inevitable reliance upon drugs and booze, the lies and deceptions and the final falling out. This film is no different save that the group is still going as far as I know. You get more or less what you would expect with two possible exceptions. Firstly, the members of the group profess an affinity with mysticism and the dark arts generally with many references to metaphysical events which they claim to have experienced and which permeate their music or at least that's what they say and if you could actually hear any of their lyrics, this may well be true. Secondly, the "front man " is a remarkable individual called Jaz Coleman. A very intelligent and talented man but as is so often the case with such people,deeply flawed with self-confessed stays in psychiatric hospitals and narcotic addictions.I was not particularly engaged when watching this film as I found the group members and attendant managers and disgruntled former managers to be by and large the sort of people I would very much wish to avoid.I am sure that if you took any well known past or present rock band and put the members under a microscope, threw in some archive footage and vague reminiscences from people who claim to know or have known them, you would not see very much different than what is portrayed here. I can't see that this film would appeal to anyone other than a die-hard Killing Joke fan and surprisingly there are plenty of them..

I quite enjoyed this film. A fairly novel concept with decent effects,

a coherent and interesting plot and some good acting particularly from Asa Butterfield and I thought also from Carla Gugino an actress I hadn't heard of before. I couldn't escape the feeling however that I was being treated like an idiot to some extent by the director/producers and casting people of whom there seemed to be a considerable number. Asa is aged 20 but a little physically immature and he played the part of a gawky 16 year old very well. His high school girlfriend was played by Britt Robertson who we can be forgiven for thinking must be in the same age group - ie 16/17. The actress is in fact aged 27. Now she is clearly an attractive young woman but 16 she ain't. In one of the final scenes we are treated to the revelation that Asa's father was Nathaniel Shepherd played by Gary Oldman.The mother we already knew was Sarah Elliot played by Janet Montgomery who is in fact 32 years of age but appeared younger in the film maybe a very pretty late twenties allowing for the fact that she held the rank of Lt-Col in the USAF. Gary Oldman, bless him, is currently 59 years old and has obviously,shall we say, enjoyed life to the full.The idea therefore that a very attractive twenty something career officer was having a relationship with and conceiving children by a man who could be mistaken for her grandfather I found a bit hard to swallow. The other problem with the film in my opinion was the failure to explain or in any way allude to the technology being used to ferry people to and from Mars. The Nasa mars mission was recently put forward from 2030 to 2050 due to "technical problems" largely the fact that they have so far failed to invent a form of space travel more sophisticated than liquid-fuelled rockets and I would have been interested to learn from the makers of the film how they predicted this problem would be overcome. Nope,you just keep on firing rockets into the sky.I hope I'm not being too picky but when a film starts not to make any sense,suspension of belief becomes difficult to maintain.

I saw the negative reviews before watching this film and decided that with Gleeson and Fassbender in starring roles, it couldn't be all that bad. Well, it is and then some. In England there are three types of travelling people - the original Rom gypsies (very rare now), Irish travellers who in English are often called "Tinkers" and a third group of basically itinerant criminals called "Pikeys".They travel the highways and byways of merrie England camping illegally on public or private land, terrorising the local population, taking over the nearby pubs and generally causing trouble whilst they carry on with their more traditional pursuits of begging and stealing.Eventually they move on or are moved on leaving piles of rotting garbage (you could clearly see this towards the end of the film) for someone else to clear up. That community is what this film is about.

I cannot think of a less edifying subject for a film.Are we supposed to empathise with this group of nomadic miscreants perhaps seeing something noble in their total disregard for law and order and other peoples wellbeing? Are they the modern hunter-gatherers of society turning their backs on a corrupt system and preferring to live a life free from other people's rules like working for a living and paying taxes? I neither know nor care.A totally misconceived and egotistical dog's breakfast of a film giving the audience nothing for their money.Perhaps the director once bought a sprig of heather from a woman in a straw hat and colourful clothing - " It will bring you luck dearie"- and thought it would be a good idea to make a film about these lovely people.

The accent which gave people a lot of trouble is what we call in England "West Country" - basically the counties of Devon and Cornwall. A broad west country accent is difficult to understand even for the English so I don't know how they would expect the rest of the world to cope with it- utter stupidity. Incidentally Gleeson's accent was authentic most of the time save for the occasional trip back to Dublin but Fassbender absolutely nailed it. You might say that this is what you would expect from an actor with his talents but for a man from Heidelberg it was a truly remarkable feat.

When I started this review I intended to give it a 2 but I have decided to give it 3 because the sun is shining today.