"Green Room" (2015) d/ Jeremy Saulnier

Tonight, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise touches down on planet Valhalla, as we cover 2016's Green Room, a surprisingly nasty and effective independent slice of survival horror/thriller from director Jeremy Saulnier, that stars the late Anton "Chekov" Yelchin and Sir Pat Stew himself, in a one hundred-eighty degree dramatic departure from the "infinitely wise leader of humanity" roles he's been sopping up in recent years, the equivalent to Ben Kingsley's Don Logan role in Sexy Beast (2000) in a way.Despite heavy praise from seemingly most everyone who's seen it thus far, I approached with cautious interest, as the familiar subject matter has often been wincingly fumbled in Hollywood hands over the years. To add insult to injury, the vast number of uninteresting arthouse trailers that preceded the movie on the disc didn't ease my mind at all, but then like a lightning bolt (or two)...


"You here to see Lou Rawls? That's twenty-five each, no flash photography..."
After an ignominious start to their latest tour of the Pacific Northwest, punk outfit "The Ain't Rights" find themselves booked to a club off the beaten path near Portland that's frequented by a lot of skins, some of the sieg heiling, red laced variety. After throwing a ballsy cover at the mostly bald patrons (Dead Kennedy's "Nazi Punks Fuck Off", of course) to kick off the festivities, the rest of the band's heavy set wins over most of the close cropped crowd. When Sam (Alia Shawkat) forgets her phone inside the green room, Pat (Anton Yelchin) heads back in to retrieve it, only to stumble across a dead chick with a knife protruding from her domepiece on the floor, and her friend, a skinhead girl named Amber (Imogen Poots) being held in the room against her will at gunpoint, much like the punk band is about to be. With their phones confiscated, our heroes are left at the mercy of a guy named Big Justin (Eric Edelstein), while the other bouncer, Gabe (Macon Blair), consults with the club owner on what to do with all of these pesky eye-witnesses. I'm sure he's a reasonable guy and he'll chalk it up to a misunderstanding and let them all go, in the end. Or maybe not...


"There I was, swinging down the high street, yeah.", croons Amber (Imogen Poots) the skinchick.
The club owner, Darcy (Patrick Stewart), has a continuing mission to raise racial consciousness among the local bootboy population (can I get a "Hail Victory!"?), to explore the manufacturing of strange new drugs, like heroin, in the club's basement bunker, to snuff out lesser lives while issuing red laces in the process, and to boldly kill like no man has killed before. In keeping with his mantra, Darcy calls for the elimination of the pesky punks, who've overpowered Big Justin, taken his gun, and slapped an MMA-style arm bar on the big galoot, by now. When Reese's (Joe Cole) chokehold proves less effective than planned, Amber serves up a Stanley knife disemboweling for Darcy's employee. There's a struggle at the door that leaves Pat with a diced arm, hanging by the sinews in several places, and forces Darcy to call in his bigger guns, in the form of a white power dog trainer whose pit bulls throat rip at attack commands issued in German, and a small army of skinheads with shotguns and machetes who've already earned their red laces and are eager to spill more blood for their admired leader. You can bet what transpires from here on out is going to be packed with tension, deep-seated gore splattered murders, and bellicose bovver boys. My opinion may be slightly biased concerning these proceedings, but that's a recipe for success in my book. Check it out!


" This is a white bastion. No smelly Ferengi admitted.", exclaims Darcy (Patrick Stewart) and his Star Trek bootboys.
Make no mistake about it, the film's soundtrack, which includes such scene luminaries as FEAR, Poison Idea, Bad Brains, Slayer, Napalm Death, and Obituary, to name a few, is authentic and satisfying. Patrick Stewart has been a favorite of mine since his portrayal of Sejanus in BBC's I, Claudius miniseries put him on my radar decades ago, and this movie only reinforces that sentiment. Hearing Jean-Luc Picard talk about "earning red laces", "boot parties", and "nigger dope" is especially hilarious and surreal, and keeps the film from becoming bogged down by the apex levels of tension and on-screen brutality that it taps into in order to bring it's audience some genuine scares. As a long-time proponent of villainy, I confess that I may or may not have been cheering on the bad guys the whole time or most of it. I was certainly grooving heavily on the ultra-realistic violence, at the very least. On the scale, I've got to bestow the full Monte, four Wops, on this potent little indie thriller, and strongly recommend that you score a copy and see it for yourselves. See if it doesn't stick with you well after the end credits roll.


Go ahead and keep those tattooed Neanderthals at bay, mister Chekov, I'll be up here entertaining some blue and green women. Kirk out.

"Skins" (1994) d/ Wings Hauser

Here's a rarely-seen exploitative oddity from the mid-nineties that was written, directed by, and stars one of my favorite bad guys of the eighties, 'Ramrod' himself, the one and only Wings Hauser. Of course, he also croons a tune, "Walking on the Right Side of the Devil", for the production, but it pales in comparison to his unforgettable "Neon Slime". Also singing (sort of) her way through a co-starring role is Linda Blair, of "The Exorcist"(1973) fame and "Exorcist II: The Heretic"(1977) infamy. She gets 'em out, here, too, and it's always a good time, whenever she does do just that, in my estimation.


"Fruit cocktail?? Thanks boys, but I'm watching my figure...", laughs Bentz (Cole Hauser).
A gay kid named Marjoe (!) gets fagbashed by a gang of skinheads and left to die, naked and spray painted in an alley. His mother, Maggie (Linda Blair) pollutes the air in honky tonk dive bars with something vaguely resembling singing, while his father, Joe (Wings Hauser), an alcoholic ex-cop, spends his nights knackered in Mexico, while the skins brazenly terrorize Hollywood Boulevard, kicking over trash cans, slamdancing to the house band (the singer says "Oi!" a whole lot) at their elaborately decorated clubhouse (Nazi stencils, swasti-curtains abound, and even a dramatic hulking floor-stika) and spray painting the obligatory swastikas over Walk of Fame stars, those bald-headed bastards. When Maggie travels down to Mexico to enlist her drunken sot of a husband, he calls his own son a fag(!!) before finally agreeing to dry out and get involved.


"I'll climb outta this jumpsuit if you're bringing something like this to the table..."
When Joe's first attempt at drunken payback goes miserably wrong at the clubhouse (the leader, Bentz, played by his real life son, Cole, beats him bloody then pisses on him...jeez, that must have been a fun shoot), he makes a teary-eyed vow to his wife and recovering son to turn things around, by cutting off the hooch, and repeatedly stumbling up a steep hill while dressed like Richard Simmons, being cheered on by his flamboyant son at the top, in one of several montage sequences. Meanwhile, the skins are raping the female half of an interracial couple, and later getting off the hook when the girl is too intimidated to finger the responsible eggheads. Maggie, impressed by Joe's sweaty efforts and improved relationship with Marjoe, gives her husband a piece of montage-pussy, as a reward. At the climax, Joe turns the usual Hollywood Boulevard rabble into a lynch mob, jogging down the middle of the street with bats and weapons to the clubhouse, where they take it to the bellicose bootboys, in a pro-wrasslin' style free-for-all. The reunited family walks off, arm-in-arm, while Bentz, who ducked out on the beating, and his rottweiler move on towards a whiter, brighter future...Skins 2? Never happened.


"Can I marinate both of these in neon slime?", ponders Joe (Wings Hauser).
Besides Wings and Cole, the film also features Wings' partner/wife, Cali Lili Hauser as the skinheads' punky plaything, and his daughter, Bright Hauser, as a "Young White Angel", sieg heiling in a swazzy armband, and reciting "America, the Beautiful". It's nice to see families working together like this. Interestingly, Cole would again portray a skinhead gang leader just a year later in John Singleton's lifeless imbroglio/ethno-wank, Higher Learning (1995). As far as skinhead-related movies go, this one's not as engaging as 16 Years of Alcohol (2003) or Romper Stomper (1992), but it isn't quite as mephitic as cine-turds like Pariah (1998) or Greydon Clark's legendarily laughable Skinheads (1989). Still, it's closer to the latter two than the former, with unintentional laughs galore and Linda Blair's bountiful bobblers. There's a region 2 dvd out there, should your curiosity win out. Two wops.


The one at the front, giving it the mouth, but at the end of the night, we'll all shout...

"16 Years of Alcohol" (2003) d/Richard Jobson

You might know of Richard Jobson as the front man for Scottish seventies punk outfit, The Skids, and if you do, then tonight's review, his 2003 directorial debut, might not surprise you all that much. What a well-crafted film he's presented on the other hand, both artistically stunning and thought-provoking, very well might. Based upon both his own childhood experiences, and those of his older brother, 16 Years masterfully tackles the interpersonal relationships of one character (ably acted out by Kevin McKidd, a recent favorite of mine), scarred permanently by a cycle of abuse and alcoholism, and the hope that can sometimes change one's perspective of things, poignantly framed against the working class backdrop of Edinburgh.


Walkin' round the streets and wondering what to do, these victims of a dole queue line...
We meet Frankie Mac (McKidd) as he's being kicked to death in a back alley by a couple of hard cases, before a flashback to his childhood shows us how the whole tragic story began. When his idol and father (Lewis Macleod) turns out to be little more than an adulterous pub warbler who goes up and down in alleys more than the trash collectors, young Frankie seeks solace in half-finished glasses of booze lying around his abandoned, loveless home. With alcohol as his co-pilot, he grows into the droogan leader of a small gang of traditional skinheads who kick up smart-assed bartenders and bully record shop clerks into playing Desmond Dekker instead of Roxy Music, clearly the stuff that hairdressers listen to. As Miller (Stuart Sinclair Blyth) delights in homo-erotically punking out rival freshcuts in the disco bathroom with his stiletto, Frankie takes notice of Helen (Laura Fraser), and begins to look for kicks of a different, less violent nature. Miller misinterprets his buddy's growing maturity for weakness, and a scrap between the two in the center of town yields Frankie a knife to the gut for his troubles. Life as a couple proves tougher than expected for Frankie when his ignorance and jealousy drives Helen away for good, and when Miller later makes the scene for round two, Frankie lets his booze-fueled demons loose, and bites a chunk of his former friend's face off in the melee. Maybe you should stop drinking altogether, Frank. Just a thought.


Skinheads say Paki's dem ah can't reggae. This fellow should look in a mirror, sometime.
While fighting to stay sober, Frankie meets and quickly falls for Mary (Susan Lynch), a fellow recovering alcoholic in his support group, who encourages him to take up acting as a hobby and helps him stifle the fallback urge to knock 'em back, one by one. When the acting troupe visits a pub one night, Frankie's old feelings of deception and betrayal emerge, as he wrongfully accuses the director of sleeping with his new girlfriend, and rejects her for a familiar glass of scotch. Before he can get it down his neck, he realizes the destructive path his past has taken him down, and calls Mary to apologize, but alas, he's spotted at the phone booth by his former gang, who chase him down the first reel alley to the same ignoble end: death by boots, and the cold, hard concrete.


You aren't giving Helen (Laura Fraser) the type of 'short, controlled bursts' she's looking for, Frankie (Kevin McKidd).
Bleak and beautiful, bittersweet and stylish, this is one that anybody with a love of good movies will want to snag a copy of, even if just to witness it once, as a rental. Some cynical readers (translation: trolls) might accuse me of inflating the film's rating score, due to subject matter I haven't exactly been the least unfamiliar with throughout my own personal life, but that's simply not the case here. It does go down like this, though, for a lot of people, who've replaced their own feelings and emotions with the contents of a bottle, and I can vouch for the film's honesty, having known too many friends and family members that never made it back from the brink of self-destruction,  and having nearly done myself in the same way, on countless occasions. Highly recommended.


A lot of R's are being rolled here. I think it's called a 'Scottish accent' or something.

"Made in Britain"(1982)d/Alan Clarke

Appy-polly-lodgies for being so erratic with reviews lately,I've been pulling it all together for the upcoming Halloween party this weekend(and partying to prepare,of course),flirting with chicks,pulling up ridiculous YouTube videos,and haven't set aside enough time for the site.I'll try to wedge a few quality entries in before All Hallows Eve is finally upon us.After covering some quality Voorhees when last we met,tonight we'll move on to a bald bastard of a different pedigree.Movie fans-come-lately'll gush praise on actor Tim Roth for his performances in films like Reservoir Dogs and The Cook,The Thief,His Wife,and Her Lover,and justifiably so.I'm willing to wager a guess that the vast majority of these people never wrapped their glassies around his brilliant 1982 debut as Trevor,the xenophobic,aggro-minded skinhead in Alan Clarke's Made in Britain though.Naysayers might slag this performance off as one-dimensional,but those gents will not have noticed Roth's smooth transition into a sociopathic demon who uses his wit to set up each bovver-laden set piece.His is not Ed Norton's sympathetic Derek indoctrinated into a world of intolerance by his calloused father,nor is it Gary Oldman's goofy prankster Cocksey, who bumbles through life in the tower blocks like a loveable cartoon,Trevor has no regard for much of anything,not even his own future,instead choosing to violently lash out at anyone in his path.Tonight's British teleplay reads like an exaggerated warning to the decent middle class members of society,against an undercurrent of glue-sniffing dropout working class footsoldiers for the far right.As we all know,sensationalism sells,but who's buying?If the authoritarian twats in borstal weren't bigger fascist cunts than the bootboys themselves,they might have come away with their intended message driven home,instead of the opposite.But,if you must 'ave it,'ave it then...

Tucker's ruckers ain't no suckers,motherfucker.
Amidst strains of Wattie and Scottish oi outfit,The Exploited,we're introduced to sixteen year old Trevor(Roth),who is in court for bricking out a certain Paki named Shahnawaz's(Shahnawanker,according to Trev) window,and facing more charges at a later date for nicking some cassettes from Harrod's.Solid Gold NF Disco Classics,methinks.Trev gives the judge some two-fingers-in-the-air attitude,feeling no remorse for his crimes or victims.Harry Parker(Eric Richard) is Trev's social worker,who sends his client off to be assessed by Peter Clive(Bill Stewart) at Hooper Street,somehow still believing he can be reached.At the Centre,Clive assigns Trevor a room that he shares with Errol,a tinted young chappie.Errol marvels at Trev's forehead-stika,and quickly surrenders his bed to the new bootboy.The next morning,Trevor steals a car(or "touches the dog's arse{takes and drives away}" in the slang of the day)and hits the job centre with Errol,stopping on the way to pick up some glue for huffing and a packet of fags with his pocket money.He leaves his unlikely black accomplice huffing in the car while he's quickly discouraged inside the centre.He shows his displeasure by cinderblocking out the front window,recovering some carjacking tools from an abandoned public swimming pool afterwards which he uses to steal another car that he forces Errol out of,and drives off to see some mates.Back at the assessment centre,Clive notices Trevor sitting outside in the stolen vehicle eating a sandwich.After getting rid of the car,Trev turns up the bastard-ometer,booting the chef in the minerals when he's refused lunch(at 3pm).He's locked in a room and visited by the superintendant(Geoffrey Hutchings)whose condescending chalkboard evaluation of his life seems to quiet the raging youth,at least until the aloof authoritarian vacates the room.

Sniffing glue,meh.We used to huff butane.
When it seems that their efforts are fruitless,Clive suggests he can fix it so that Trevor drives in the local bang up derby,which is effective until his car shits out on the track,causing the skin to regress back into the anarchic bastard we've grown used to.He steals Clive's keys,breaking into the filing cabinets with Errol,and reads his illiterate bunkmate his own grim record,which states he'll be in care for the rest of his life,due to his mother's selfish wishes.Both boys shit and piss on their files,then steal the centre's van,driving to the Paki neighbourhood,where they smash windows and shout racial slurs at the Indians before Trevor drives away and crashes into a police car right outside the station,knocking Errol unconscious.He flees the wreck,leaving Errol to be aprehended by an angry member of the constabulary,who drags him into the station,calling him a little black bastard.On the long walk to his social worker's flat,he stops to gaze upon a shop window full of mannekins,arranged into a pricetagged family unit,that sends him running and raging into a tunnel,where he tears off his t-shirt,kicking and screaming at passing WAN-KAAAAAAAAH!s,uhh,errr,passing motorists.Harry,surprised to see Trevor,as he is packing to leave on holiday with his family,tells the hooligan to return to the assesssment centre before they notice he's missing.Trev then confesses all of his recent naughtiness to the social worker,surrendering himself to the authorities.We next see the boy in a jail cell,annoying the officers with the buzzer,but when he cockily suggests they return him to the juvenile assessment centre,they inform him that he's run out of chances,and it's the stripey hole or borstal for him,where upon fingerprinting,the authorities will be able to connect him to local car thefts dating back months.Trevor remains defiant,which earns him a truncheon across the kneecap.Behave,you,or we'll make you do it,won't we?

What 'ave we 'ere? A fascist v. fascist standoff.
Roth stumbled upon the role,looking for a bike pump in a theater he'd worked in prior,that happened to be holding auditions for the project,and the rest,as they say,is history.The late Bill Stewart,who had a role in 101 Dalmations,will probably be remembered best for his role on BBC's A Touch of Frost.Eric Richard has had a long running career in television,most familiarly in ITV's The Bill.The late Alan Clarke went on to do several shorts and tv productions,directing 1989's The Firm,a take on football violence and Thatcherite politics that starred Gary Oldman,before passing away in 1990 at the early age of 54.His films,like 1977's Scum and tonight's entry,were a gritty look in at the side of the British fence where the flowers never came up,and have always been among my favorites.Some of you woprophiles might find Britain a tad harsh on the senses,but then again,if you're in my company to begin with,you'll probably get a well-placed kick out of it.Right in the yarbles.Four wops,and very highly recommended.

Oi,you!Leave it out,the angry skinhead lane doesn't open up 'til six am.

"Bronco Bullfrog"(1969)d/Barney Platt-Mills

Tonight's entry is something of a departure from the usual seasonal horrific fare,a lost cinematic portrait of a moment in popular British culture of the late sixties,so often talked and written about,but rarely seen,especially on the big screen.Born from the cult of the war-time parka wearing,Italian scooter riding mods of the early to mid-sixties,who'd made their name devouring amphetamine pills,dancing to soul and reggae in the halls,and fighting the leather-clad rockers on the beach at bank holiday,the skinheads were the next big youth craze in jolly old E.Though the originals splintered off into new cults nearly as fast as they had appeared,the style of cropped hair,Doc Marten boots,braces,and Levi's jeans would never fully fade from the public eye,with periods of resurgence during the late seventies and early eighties bringing the cult worldwide.Platt-Mills' seldom seen East End take on Romeo and Juliet would offer one of the few fleeting glances into the phenomenon,with a cast of bovver boy non-actors in all the main roles.Despite my obvious attachment to such a flick,I'd never gotten a chance to see it until a pricey region 2 dvd finally turned up several years ago.Once I'd been set back nearly forty bucks,and popped the disc into my trusty Daewoo All-World player(R.I.P.),I could finally make (shaved)heads or tails of the production I'd heard and read so much about for years prior.
Let me just state for the record,that though the cult of the sixties may not have yet grown into the headline-grabbing politically charged nightmare that it would become in its later incarnations,it certainly wasn't the multi-racial harmonious fairytale that today's left would have you believe,judging by the accompanying "making of" documentary interviews with nicotine-stained street urchins who brag on camera about noising up "Sambos" in between tearing through a theater wardrobe.Interpret that how you like,folks.The soundtrack was provided by then-unknown Brit progressive/psychedelic unit,Audience,who went on to open for Led Zeppelin,and release four excellent albums.Desmond Dekker must have been all booked up.

"Ya don' unnerstan',do ya? Rik is dead. The people's poet is dead!"
Del(Del Walker)is a teenaged welder's assistant in the east end of London who looks like a shaggy young Pete Townsend and dreams of bigger things with his mates,Roy(Roy Haywood)and Chris(Chris Shepherd...anyone noticing a trend with these names?),even if they're only slightly bigger than their current extracurriculars,which consist of getting into bovver with rival gangs,sneaking into the cinema free through the fire exit,and nicking cakes from the cafe that they frequent.That's right.Cakes.The Krays these lads ain't.Now,Bronco Bullfrog(Sam Shepherd),'e's a different story altogether,innit 'e?The subject of the boys admiration,Bronco's a thieving skinhead what just escaped from borstal,and when the lads relate their petty criminality to him at the cafe,he busts up laughing at the thought,before offering them a shot at bigger nuts to crack with him and an older geezer.In the meanwhile,Del's graduated from looking at naked pin up birds on the clubhouse wall to a girlfriend by the name of Irene(Anne Gooding,the name streak's over)whose parents are a little iffy on her latest booted-suitor and his new motorbike,what 'is dad helped him pay for.And for all Del's dad knows,this girl could be Italian(she should be so lucky!).Del and Irene quickly find that their road to romance is paved with numerous,annoying roadblocks.On a movie date up west,they find that the cinema prices are too dear to pay,so they have a burger instead.

These lads could stand to do some of that ooooold moonstompin' over to a well-oiled pair of clippers.Just sayin'.
After a trip to the seaside and a visit to one of Del's relatives in hopes of settling down together and finding work proves fruitless,Irene's mom enlists the local constabulary,who happen to be investigating a recent theft(that Del was in on),and the brutal kicking of one of Del's mates,who's been hospitalized.The tragic couple seek refuge at Bronco's flat,which is littered with stolen merch that he hasn't been able to unload,but these sawdust caesars aren't in it for the money,as much as the adrenaline rush that comes with committing the crimes.Even here,they can't seem to find any alone time,as space disallows them sleeping quarters of their own,and they're forced to kip in the same room as Bronco.Can't win for losing sometimes.With the walls closing in on Del-boy,he surmizes that they would be better off returning home,with potential child abduction charges looming over his head on top of all the other mess.She's unhappy with the prospect,but willing to comply,when one of the cops stumbles upon the criminal enterprise's HQ/teen love nest,which earns him a right good one in the 'blockos,buying the three time just enough for narrow escape.They briefly converse about future plans,then part ways on the run.A happy ending of sorts,as Del's finally got that excitement he's been looking for.

Now that's what I call,some serious loitering up against a wall.
The film enjoyed a theatrical re-release in Britain a few years back,but I can't see more than the external fringes of the arthouse crowd turning out in any numbers for it.Try to imagine a poor man's Guy Ritchie's Snatch(2001) without the snappy dialogue,as delivered by one dimensional east ender teenagers that couldn't act their way through an order of fish n' chips.Your patience will be stretched through long periods of fuck all,and when something does happen,you can bet a dollar to a bag of fucking diddy donuts that it won't be carried out convincingly.The score is amazing,but there's a soundtrack cd available now for that,so be forewarned:If any of this sounds fractionally interesting to you,or you're a big girl's blouse over historical British youth subcultures,then you'll want to hunt this down.Chances are,you'd be better served spending the evening with the work of Alan Clarke,"Made in Britain" and "Scum" would make an exquisite double feature.For your humble N,this whole Bullfrog business was a long time coming,and paints a bleak black and white working class slice of life,which is never half-bad,and for that,it boots in the shop window,and nicks two wops on the rating scale.

Probably my favorite moment in the entire film.

This is England(2006)d/Shane Meadows

I ordered this the first time on pay-per-view last year while on vacation down in Texas,not expecting too much,as the cinema makes an annoying habit of painting the worst possible picture of skinheads to fill theater seats,don't they?Well,I was pleasantly surprised here.This is a film you owe at least one viewing to.It's an engrossing story about growing up in England in the early eighties,when everybody who was anybody threw on a pair of boots and braces.It captures the feelings,the music,the style,and throws it all up there on the screen without getting too preachy in either direction like you might think.The performances are all solid,especially newcomer Thomas Turgoose,who I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future,and Steven Graham(Tommy from Guy Ritchie's Snatch).The emperor approves.

Shaun(Thomas Turgoose) meets a crew of skinheads under the bridge.Ain't that always the case?
Shaun is young British boy who's lost his dad in the Faulkland War,lives with his mum,and dresses in dated flared trousers,which causes rude boys at his school to take the piss out of him,forcing him to get into rucks and that lot.Even the Paki who runs the corner store gives him bovver 'bout reading the funnies without paying for 'em.Bollocks.One day,young Shaun meets a crew of skins in his travels,freshcuts led by a lanky fucker named Woody and his mate Milky,a Jamaican rude boy.Woody likes the lad,and takes him in,and before too long,shaves him up and even buys the boy his first Ben Sherman button down.Shaun's mum is a bit upset about his new haircut,but she appreciates the boys befriending her son and all that.At first,things is real
ace,hanging out an' all that,Shaun even kisses a bird.But one night,their get-together is interrupted by one of Woody's old mates,Combo(Steven Graham),who went up for three and a half years,who pays the boys a surprise visit.Now Combo is an old head,from the days of '69,but jail has not only polarized him racially,but it's made him a bit nutty,really.Woody's crew don't stand for much more than having a laugh together,but Combo's out to change all that,innit he?

Skingirls shave Shaun into the ranks.I could use a trim,girls?Eh?
Combo splits Woody's crew down the middle,causing Woody and his bird Lol to keep their distance(Lol also hooked up with Combo for a drunken grope before he went down,back when she was a teenager adding to the awkwardness of the whole situation).Combo takes his troops to an NF rally out in the countryside,and before long,he's got the boys misspelling words like "nationalist" in spray-painted graffiti,noising up the Hindus,and even robbing the pisshead at the corner store,in the name of British Pride.While little Shaun is hanging St. George's Cross banners in his window,Combo pulls Lol aside on her way to work,and gives her a wooden box he made her while he was inside.She slags him down,telling him she's spent these past years trying to forget their hookup.Combo goes a little mental in the car,before looking up Milky,the rude boy,to score some weed and take the edge off.That night Combo gets the lads stoned,bonding with Milky,until the black lad's talk of his family and their closeness sends Combo off his nut,earning him a kicked in head.Young Shaun's a bit jaded after all this now,innit he?

Combo(Steven Graham)expresses his nationalism with a machete.
Usually I scrutinize subject matter like this with a (sharpened)metal comb,looking for discrepancies,and I have to report:this time around,I found none.It doesn't really side with the left-wingers OR the right-wingers,which for a movie of this type is a rare bird indeed.The accuracy of the subject matter is pretty close too,and you can take that from someone who's lived all of this for a long,long time now.A really good film,this.Even if you weren't a British bootboy in the eighties,you'll enjoy it.I give it a very solid rating of:

Milky's taken a right kickin',innit he?

"Romper Stomper"(1992)d/Geoffrey Wright

Judging by many directors' portrayal of skinheads on the big screen,I probably shouldn't be here typing this,opting instead to drunkenly howl footie chants locked-arm with other brutally antisocial,violent-prone sociopaths,stumbling out of the pub looking for easy victims,or ploughing roughshod into each other to aggressive strains of oi music in a circle pit.In the same vein,I'm not going to climb upon a soapbox and whine about books,covers,and judging.It is what it is.Some directors(Greydon Clark,John Singleton)fail miserably in capturing the phenomenon on celluloid,others(Alan Clarke,Richard Jobson)come a great deal closer,while no one can honestly boast of nailing it properly.That being said,Geoffrey Wright's 1992 film is probably my favorite on the subject matter,though hardly perfect.

A girl and her bootboys,strange love triangle,this.
A gang of skins beats up some skateboarding Asians in an Australian tube station.Elsewhere,Gabe(Jacqueline Mackenzie) enlists a familiar face to make a clean break with her junkie boyfriend.Pommey Bill has come to help.While Bill hems up the skinny drug addict,the older man lectures Gabe about the drugs she should be taking instead as she hurriedly gathers her things.When he paws one of her breasts,she shoots him down,and leaves on her own.At an Asian restaurant,a young blood-stained Vietnamese implores his friends to help him seek revenge for the bashing his sister has just taken at the hands of skinheads.They decline.Gabe finds herself at the Railway Hotel,a Melbourne pub,when a group of skins barge in triumphantly.Some punk/goth/question mark girls ask the leader,Hando(Russell Crowe)and his best mate,Davey(Daniel Pollock) if they'll stomp the hippies that kicked the girls out of a squat,while the youngest,Bubsy, is denied alcohol and carried out by one of the skinhead girls.Hando's boys question the bartender about having gooks in the pub,while Hando and Davey are attracted to Gabe at the bar.She leaves with the skins,who harrass a homeless bum otuside a string of closed stores.A jacket in the on display catches Gabe's eye,so Hando,ever chivalrous,smashes the shop window out and steals it for her.After the gang stumbles back to their delapidated warehouse/headquarters,Hando carries Gabe up to his room,and they sleep together.

Davey,Bubs,and Hando mug for the camera.
The next morning,the ugly Melbourne boys are joined by the handsome Canberra boys,led by Magoo,and a wild party ensues that night,with booze spilling,bodies flailing,and Davey,who's feelings for Gabe have grown,attacking a heavy bag with a cartoon gook drawn on the side.Amidst the mayhem,Hando drags Gabe up to his room and roughly fucks her from behind all the while grasping a German World War 2 relief he has displayed on his wall.

"Who's your fuhrer,bitch,huh?!!Who's your fuhrer?!!"
The next day,the skins' meal is interrupted by Bubs and Brett,who relate to the gang that there's gooks at the Railway Hotel.The skins jump into action,grabbing assorted weaponry and piling into Magoo's junk car bound for the pub.There,they brutally beat two Asians unconscious,not knowing they had just bought the place,and that the third had gone to get lunch for them.The young Vietnamese,horrified by the sight of his bloody,beaten brothers,goes off and enlists all the Asians help down at the factory.Soon the skins' bullying turns into a fight for life,as they are swarmed by angry factory workers,who chase them back to their warehouse before the skins escape through the roof.The Asians set their hang out on fire.

"Give him smack in head...special!"
The skins count their losses;Luke,Magoo,Brett,Champ,all beaten or dead.They bully the local hippies out of their squat,which becomes the new skins headquarters.They plan on getting guns to extract revenge for their dead mates,when Gabe suggests the bootboys ransack the flat of Martin, her "familiar face" from earlier in the film.At the old man's gated residence, the modern-day stormtroopers interrupt his attempt to seduce the young girl,and inform him:"We've come to wreck everything.God sent us."As the skinheads drunkenly thieve anything they can pile into Martin's Rolls Royce,Gabe reveals that he's not only a former lover,but her father as well(blech!).Martin is beaten and bound to the toilet while the skins vandalize and play silly buggers with his Japanese-imported sports car.After the toilet is smashed in an argument with his daughter,Martin uses a jagged piece of porcelain to free himself and arm himself with a handgun.Does he dispatch his anebriated intruders?How does the turf war between the gang and the Asians end?Does Gabe find love with Hando or Davey?And,if so, will their violent,xenophobic creed allow for a relationship to blossom?All loose ends are deftly tied at the tense,action packed climax of the film.

Fourth Reich fighting men,that's who they are.
Wright's urban drama made a name for Russell Crowe overnight,skyrocketing the actor to A list status in films like "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind".During the filming, Crowe actually got himself arrested in a bar brawl while dressed in character(talk about method acting,sheesh),the director having to vouch for the actor that he was not in fact the leader of a gang of hooligans!Crowe insisted he and his celluloid gang work out together at the gym,drink together at the pub,etc. all to bond the players as if they were indeed the angry faces you see before you on the big screen.He even had baseball caps made with "T.B.T.U." or Tomorrow Belongs to Us,a play on a song from the musical Cabaret to remind the men they were actors,not realizing that very song was made popular in the skinhead scene by right wing band Skrewdriver at the time.Oops.Daniel Pollock,the actor who played Davey and real-life boyfriend to Jacqueline Mackenzie,was fighting a heroin addiction and killed himself before the film's release.A gripping,fast-paced glimpse into violent gang life,their desperate cry for a return to order often falling on the deaf ears of an ever-changing world,and how precious love can be,if even for a fleeting moment in a darkened back alley.Once you've seen it,you won't soon forget it.Highly recommended.