Visitors Review

(2012-05-26 15:44)

Interesting, well acted and true to the period.

This review is from: Young Soul Rebels (DVD) This may not be quite Hollywood quality, but it is an excellent little film. The writing and acting are well done. The set design, cinematography and costumes--as well as the plot line and language--seemed authentic to the period. The fact that it takes place in Great Britain gives it a particularly interesting twist. As gay genre movies go, this is one of the best I've seen.

oldskool72 (2012-05-26 01:41)

Flawed, but from the heart.

Firstly, lets get the negatives ironed out and set the record straight. Yes, the plot gets a bit lost towards the end, yes some of the acting isquestionable, yes some of the storyline is a little far fetched. If wejudged every film we saw on those merits alone we'd be very shallow people!Thank heavens British Cinema gets away with making films like this, thatrepresent British History, Culture and lifestyle in a non-conformist,sensitive and "path less trodden" view. Yes it has a gay story line... and to correct another review only ONE ofthe two central characters is gay. What sets this film apart if we arediscussing it within the genre of "Gay films" is that it tackles thedelicate issue of men of Afro-Caribbean descent being gay in an interestingand uncompromising way. It doesn't pander to our expectations/stereotypicalview of gay men, and utilises the sexuality angle as an integral part of thewhole plot. "Jeffery" it aint! Nuff Said! The whole story is set in the Summer of 1977 - the Queens Silver Jubilee.Chris & Caz run "Soul Patrol" - a pirate radio station that plays JazzFunk - marginalised at the time by Punk and Reggae. One of their closefriend's is murdered in the park, and Chris finds a piece of evidence as towho the killer is. The film is Directed by Isaac Julien, who was shortlisted for a TurnerPrize recently (2002) (A prestigious UK award within the art community)Julien has captured, by use of location (Dalston - East London) Lighting(capturing the hot summer of '77 perfectly) and Music (the soundtrack is agem - Roy Ayers, Funkadelic, Blackbyrds etc) a mood and feeling that I'vefelt from no other film. In some ways "Young Soul Rebels" was ahead of its time, and was badlymarketed and has been aired very little since its release in 1991. Its"Celebration & Integration" message is how we now live, as a mixedrace/sexuality culture here in the Major towns of the UK today... it seemssuch a shame to mis-label it "A gay film" when there is clearly more to itthan that.

(2012-05-23 05:58)

good british period fim

This review is from: Young Soul Rebels (DVD) good british period film dealing with murder music and gay lifestyle in 1977 england.the film has something for everyone. music of the disco era gay/straight relationships and mystery.acting is good and story moves at a fairy decent pace.

Theo Robertson (2012-05-22 12:37)

Very Poorly Conceived Movie

Remember the 1966 movie BLOWUP ? That's the movie that claims to be amurder thriller but is nothing of the sort . YOUNG SOUL REBELS isbasically the same , it starts with a murder in a park then spends mostof its running time going out of its way not to be a murder thrillerexcept for the last five minutes which reveals who the murderer is .I'm surprised anyone is still able to remember or care about the murdersubplot by the end of the movie since it concentrates more on the soulclub scene of the late 1970s . Worse it features several scenes of menkissing and in one scene there's something a lot worse than kissinggoing onBefore anyone goes running to the admin screaming that a ravinghomophobe has submitted a review let me point out that BROKEBACKMOUNTAIN has received massive critical acclaim ( Though it's unlikelyto make more than 50 million dollars at the US box office ) so much forhomophobia . What my main gripe the opening and closing scene revolvesaround a murder and very little in between has anything to do with thealleged main story . There is no main story as we see a rambling illfocused film concerning itself with the club scene of 1977 . Ironicallyenough there's no feel of time or place here and could easily be set inany part of Britain at any point during the last 30 years This is just another cheaply made British movie that was produced bypeople who have no desire to make movies for a mainstream audience . Ifthey had decided to make a movie revolving around a murder in a parkthat would have been fine , ditto if they had decided to make a movierevolving around the London soul scene but seeing as they've tried tocombine the two YOUNG SOUL REBELS is a failure while the scenes ofhomosexuality is totally alienating for the average cinema goer . Atleast BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN deserves credit for knowing what it is

rase_97 (2012-05-19 10:15)

Good film! Especially when its intentions are understood

I am currently writing a paper on this film and another for one of myfilm classes, Topics in National Cinemas, as it was one of the films weexamined. While perusing this page for certain information I needed ihappened to read the previous comment that someone had posted regardingwhat they thought of the film.While reading this individual's comments it occurred to me that theyCOMPLETELY misunderstood the film and what it set out to challenge andaddress. This film is NOT a murder mystery. Yes, a murder occurs andsets off the story, but it is no more essential to the plot than is theyouth in a coma in La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995). Like La Haine, this filmsets out to address social issues pertaining to race, class,positioning in the political landscape, and, unlike La Haine, sexuality(which seemed to greatly disturb the previous individual who posted).Young Soul Rebels examines the social landscape of late 1970s Britain,and particularly how it affects youths within the greatly marginalized"Black" culture. It confronts issues of diaspora, through thejuxtaposition of different aspects of the "Black" culture, as in therastas working at the garage, compared with the two, funk obsessed (andmuch more "Afro-English") main characters. It also looks at theintersection at which certain sub-cultural borders collide, as in thePunks, the Funks, and the Reggaes, as well as Hetero and Homosexuality.Ultimately this notion of collision is key to understanding this filmfor what it is, which is precisely identities in collision. If theprevious individual who posted had understood this, then they wouldhave also seen how the murderer's motives implied this idea of identitycollision, were driven by it and pertained more to it than to readingthe film as a simple "whodunnit." In this light, you'll also find thatmusic drives the film, both as a signifier for identities, and as anexpression of them. Music is certainly an essential component to thisfilm.For more information regarding the issues this film juggles, and for agreater understanding of its concepts and meanings, look at thewritings of Paul Gilroy, particularly his book "Ain't No Black in theUnion Jack," and the film's director, Isaac Julien.

sianladybaby (2012-05-18 21:43)

young soul rebels

firstly this film has some mistakes in it,i was a soul girl back int heday,punks and soul boys weren't pally,but not enemies either,the didn'tgo to the same clubs,the fashion is correct but the music is out oftime ,some of the music came out maybe up to 2 years later,that apartit does pick up the atmosphere of the day and the vibe and is at leastacknowledging the soul scene,and the cult of soul boys and girls ,amajor thing,but very unknown which is odd,i guess the write must have abit of info of the movement,still as a fun film its OK and does bring afewmemories i think unless you were part of the scene you would find thisa bit dull,it is hollow ,but the clothes and dancing are all spoton,although gay guys did have there own disco clubs,again fairlyunderground as back then it wasn't as tolerated as it is,rightly so,nowas so many other films have been made about punks and skinheads it godto see a movie reflecting a little known but extremely popular movement

noitsme_habibi (2012-05-18 14:39)

Good feeling

Been a long time since I saw this movie, but whenever I think of it, orevenjust hear that song from the soundtrack, I feel all happy and gay. Funny thing is, I went back to see what I'd noted about it at thetime(1991), and apparently I'd only considered it a so-so film!So, yes, perhaps the story line was a bit flimsy, perhaps all of the moviedidnt amount to a whole much ... but if the memory of it still makes mesmile after ten years, it must've been a lot better than I'd originallyrealised! ;-)

Buck Aroo (2012-05-18 08:09)

rebels without a clue

I saw this film shortly after it's release, and felt quite cheated. It'stitle and advertising gave me the impression that it would be about theblack DJ sound systems and soul scene which was at it's height in Englandduring the late '70s and early '80s. But this only took up a fraction offilm time. Instead, I had to sit through a convoluted sub-plot featuring amurder mystery which appeared all of a sudden during the movie, a verygratuitous gay sex scene, and generally bad acting and direction. Therewere a few moments where the protagonists had brushes with the law, and Ithought at last this film was going somewhere and would depict the racismofthe justice system accurately. But this was not the case, and thesescenesappeared to have been either badly written, or edited. And when onecharacter deceides to carry out his own murder investigation, I found itlaughable. I understand that no film can be 100% accurate when depictinganera or events around it, and that it should be entertaining to the viewer.But at least a good attempt should be made to get the basics right. Forexample, hardly any of the black male actors sported an afro hairstyle orwore flares, which would have been as common as a rainy day in Londonduring1977. Blacks mixing with Punks? I'm no sure about that. They would haveconsidered a lot of Punks to be similar to the skinheads which carried outalot of racist attacks at that time. Also another sex scene featuringSophieOkenedo and Valentine Nonyela, was not handled well at all, and wascertainly not as explicit as the previous gay sex scenes which says a lotabout it's director. By trying to show that homosexuality in the blackbritish community is opposed more than in the white, I feel is absolutenonsense. Homophobia has no colour preference, and being black, it'sdirector Isaac Julien should know better really.

hotspur95 (2012-05-17 10:31)

This will be the review then

Yey! Ive found a film that Ive seen and no-one has commented on! It's beenthat long since Ive watched it, that Ive forgotten all about it. All I canremember is that it was about some gay black guys and they run around for abit... jeez... I think it was set in London. Oh dear :) I always rememberthat it sucked, but I suspect that it may have not been that bad. It mayhave irritated me at the time with the gay angle tho. Im certainly nothomophobic, but things like this, such as, say, Queer as Folk, tend to getmy back up, I guess it is my middle-class sensibilites being offended by'having my nose rubbed in it'. I much prefer the more sensitive approachsuch as 'In and Out' (Frank Oz dir), or Wilde (Stephen Fry starred), bothofwhich I rate quite highly.

(2012-05-16 19:09)

ENTERTAINMENT AND SUBSTANCE

This review is from: Young Soul Rebels (DVD) I agree wholeheartely with the last reviewer. He eloquently expressed the very essence of the film. This is a movie of London in the Era of Thatcher and gay freedom and racial discrimination and black pride. I was totally surprised that the guy who is indeed the murderer was portrayed as such a milktoast until he threatens the young man who was framed for the murder by overzealous cops, or maybe the term is bobbies in Britain. I thought the sex scene was very erotic and the two men had received a dose of peer pressure attempting to guilt trip them into aborting their gay inter racial relationship. They encoutered such hatred, but wisely chose to ignore the small minds of the bigoted. I enjoyed the music of Philly which reminded me of my youth in the 70s at The Philadelphia College of Art .Funkadelic, Parliament, The O' Jays made the soundtrack rich and energetic. The portraits of park sex goes back to a different more carefree era before the scourge of AIDS. I guessthat is not true in this instance as one man paid with his life for his park tryst. I would admit that my gaydar was way off as the man who was picked up by the cops as the presumed murderer was straight, not gay. I guess also another joy of this film is the mixing of all different sorts of people, enriching their lives immensely. Especially tense was the cops expressing their racial bigotry towards any black men they came into contact with. Although it doesn't seem realistic, it was fun to see the black men giving it back to the mean spirited cops which they deserved for their obnoxious behavoir. The DVD was very crisp and the clothing was fun and colorful and the portrayal of the club scene in all it's eccentricities was entertaining. I have wanted to see this movie since it came out in the early 90s and I know I will watch it again and again. I wish I had not waited this long to see it. I also echo what the last reviewer said about the gay men not being stereotypes, which was so refreshing. Director Isaac Julien has created a very interesting thrillerthe has the success of making the viewer wish for more movie when it is over, it is the perfect length, perfectly edited, so entertaining and a message that gives the viewer something to think about. I would compare this movie favorably with the movie of the late 70's "Cruising" which was too bloody and disturbing and if I recall correctly featured more stereotypical portraits of gay men. This movie was never sensationalistic in any way. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future customers of Amazon have to say about this special film. Two reviews are not enough for this brilliant movie!!! Oh I almost forgot to mention how interesting it was that they used the audiotape that had been in the boombox of the man who was murdered and how it had accidently recorded the murder, and then fell into the hands of the young man who was picked up by the cops and interrogated as the presumed murderer, because his little sister had retrieved the boombox in the park where the killer had ditched it. It kept the murder front and center in the minds of the viewers through the film, which was very effective and clever. I highly recommend this movie. Buy it as you will probably want to watch it again and again !!!!!