MovieChat Forums > Weekender (2011) Discussion > Not bad, not particularly good

Not bad, not particularly good

posted 13 years ago by The_Man_The_Myth
2 replies | jump to latest

Undecided on Weekender. I quite liked the plot – a couple of big-hearted, small-time crooks, living for weekends filled with E’s and dancing, decide to try their hand at hosting raves themselves. Unfortunately their new found professions as illegal rave promoters are short-lived when the big-time criminals decide they want a big piece of the pie.

I certainly enjoyed Weekender more than I thought I would, but it just felt a bit unnecessary and derivative. It’s easy to draw comparisons with the hugely successful Human Traffic from 1999. I quite enjoyed Human Traffic at the time, but it was overly sentimental and packed with clichés and stereotypes. When I watch it now I cringe at the dialogue. Weekender is set at a time when the scene was burgeoning, so some of the clichés and stereotypes I found easier to forgive.

Sadly, the one thing makers of these sort of films seem to find impossible to do is portraying the Ecstasy experience. Reality and first-hand experience simply doesn’t reflect what’s on show in Weekender. Furthermore, and whilst somewhat trivial, things such as the banknotes and phone boxes from the future were signs of laziness and/or poor research.

The music was brilliant and the club scenes had me hankering for one last night out ingesting things I shouldn’t be, but, as mentioned previously, I just didn’t really see the point in it. Human Traffic was at least a depiction of contemporary Britain at the time, provoking both social and political commentary. Consequently, whether I liked it or not, it had more relevance than Weekender.

"People like Coldplay and voting for the Nazis - you can't trust people."

[–] Monknificent 9 years ago

Yes, exactly, the flipping banknotes! I don't usually get too geeky with details like this, so I don't notice or mind minor anachronisms while watching, like a car model or reg. plate being a couple of years early, but the bloody banknotes, argh! I noticed them STRAIGHTAWAY, it was like a damn beacon! Especially the 20s, which were close to being TWO DECADES outside of the period! Took me right out of the story!

I simply cannot believe that NOBODY on this weak flick spotted that - I wouldn't expect the younger actors to, maybe, but anyone over the age of 30 working on the film, COME ON!
After that, how difficult would it have been to get hold of the correct bills, and just photocopy them for the piles and use a few genuine bills for the close-ups, FFS!

[–] badgerking10 8 years ago

I watched this perfectly happily earlier on. But, it's certainly nothing special... Not really enough story and, while there are odd lines of absolutely genius dialogue, the writing's generally very average... Not much in the way of back-story or character development. But, despite that, Jack O'Connell and Henry Lloyd-Hughes actually manage to make you believe that they're really close friends... A bit of a waste of Jack O'Connell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Zawe Ashton's talents. Though, Ben Batt is given a good opportunity to show how well he can play a nasty piece of work.