mwoodkw I'll start out by saying that I own this film, and I am a big Punk fan. Despite these two factors I simply cannot give this film higher than a 6 out of 10. The story line and acting in this film is pretty lousy...which is probably why one reviewer found it "funny". Ray Grange ("Rude Boy" of the film) admitted in an interview that he didn't agree with his lines. His character is very flat and his dialog with Joe Strummer and the other members of the clash are contradictory from one scene to another.With that being said, there is another element of this movie that makes it worth viewing...more than once. The scenes with the clash were often ad libbed and these scenes play like documentary footage. The performances are from actual shows and they are amazing. There is a "Play the Clash Only" option that plays only these performances. I often just find myself fast forwarding through Grange's solo scenes instead. Basically, If your not a fan of Punk or the Clash...rent a different one...maybe something like "Sid and Nancy" or "SLC Punk". but if you like this film I suggest "Westway to the World" (a Clash Documentary).

delia-19 I followed the Clash from 1979 and was quite curious to see this movie. I admit the Clash concert and recording sequences were great (even though it seems like White Riot was always in the live performances.) The dialog was very hard to hear or understand for that matter and Mick Jones was trying his best to play the tough guy. I don't even know what the storyline was, but it seems like all these Clash songs were linked together and a movie worked around them. All that aside, the best part of the film was Joe Strummer at the piano (what a gem in the middle of this muddle!). This would have worked better if it was a bootleg Clash concert movie since the band's energy was captured pretty well with this movie's grainy texture. Rent it, but don't buy this unless you want to remember what we dressed like in the late 70's early 80's.

ukcritic One of the flattest movies I have ever seen. Mostly a collection of drab, long takes following around a young prick who joins The Clash as a roadie, does a bad job, then wanders around drunk, making tactless, muddled comments about race, the band's politics, and what he wants to do with his life. Dull, disjointed, quiet lines punctuate long silences; even the live performances of The Clash fail to give the movie much energy, due to poor sound design that cuts off absolutely all crowd noise and brings down the volume of the songs, so that most of them end up sounding like drab demo tapes.The film is mainly a plotless mess. When it does focus on the main character, all we see is a buffoon stuttering out inarticulate and unwelcome comments to roadies and band members who hate him but just try to ignore him. Whatever the character study of this guy hopes to achieve, it has absolutely nothing to do with The Clash, whose music and politics are not examined at all -- they are simply seen as some rock group the 'rude boy' is following around and who get some concert footage in the picture. In the last twenty minutes we also get meaningless cutaways to political party conferences and to a black youth who has not been in the movie before, has no connection to any of the previously seen characters, and who is undergoing criminal charges for something which is never made clear.Seeing this movie is tempting for Clash fans -- we want to see what the project is about, and we want to see the concert footage -- but it's an irrelevant, static mishmash that gives those in the audience a lot of time to scratch their heads.

acky This intriguing film blurs the line between documentary and reality much in the way 60's classics such as "Medium Cool" do. The story (when it's allowed to tell itself) of the drunken directionless punk is sad, charming and wild. I can see why the Clash disowned the film. It shows how they merely reflect the showbiz side of the struggles of the working class in England. When Ray attempts to tell Mick Jones how much "Stay free" means to him, he is shrugged off with a " I'm watching you." We see Ray being consumed by his own nihilstic rage while the clash use it up to the point of making good pop music with it.