Clapham Junction (2007)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

After ten minutes, this movie devolves into the most excruciatingly slow paced film since The Shining. It's just so slow it's painful.Another review noted that the film seems to reinforce negative stereotypes in the gay community. They were right. Everything that the gay community is condemned for is thrown in the viewer's face, and then some. With the slow pacing, you're given a lot of character development but because the scenes just drag on, you lose track of these things quickly.It's trying to make a point, except it all gets lost in-you guessed it- the pacing. If that's your thing, go for it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Any organization or individual who is homophobic or hates gays in any way is going to love this film. Here we have every negative gay stereotype imaginable. First we have the gay guy who cheats on his husband on the day they are married. Then there's the pedophile who has sex with a 14 year old boy. Then we have the guys who revel in sex in a public bathroom. Then we have the fat, ugly old priest or minister or whatever. Then we have the closeted, married gay man. Then we have the gay basher who is himself bashed when he reveals his true nature and tries to have sex with a fat, ugly guy. The only stereotype we seem to be missing is the raving gay transvestite, but then most transvestites are heterosexual. So the lesson to be learned here is that it is not possible for gay men to have happy productive lives or 'normal' sex. And if there were anyone associated with this film who is gay, they should be ashamed of themselves for promoting these negative stereotypes.

singularly offensive in that it makes a pretense of addressing some of the darker issues of gay subculture while actually exploiting them for the titillation factorreminiscent of a '50's pulp novel, with graphic and sensational violencepresents an unrelentingly grim picture of life as a gay man, and offers no redemption whatsoevernot particularly well-acted (the women could do with fewer histrionics), though it is interesting to see the leads of Maurice together againcinematography exaggerates the sordid, but is otherwise lackluster

Over a two day period a series of interconnected events impact a disparate group of Londoners.Occasionally brilliant, often shocking and ultimately depressing exploration of contemporary urban gay sexuality and the resultant array of societal attitudes across age and class. In part influenced by the horrendously brutal murder of Jody Dobrowski on Clapham Common in 2005, Elyot creates a host of deeply unpleasant characters as the main focus of his exploration into homosexuality, its surface acceptance and ever-present homophobia across all social strata's today.Whilst astonishingly frank in its depiction of casual, anonymous sexual encounters in public toilets and open spaces (Clapham Common, Hamstead Heath) and the contrast between being 'out' versus being closeted and covert, Elyot falls back on the clichéd and contrived device of 'the dinner party' to enable a host of views to bubble up to the surface. Perhaps it's the environment Elyot knows best so finds it easiest to write about, but it's still hard to gauge what his intention is with his moneyed and privileged group of diners – are they intended as a representation of middle class views and behaviours? In addition, why is practically every character either unpleasantly selfish or irritatingly naïve? It may well be that the well-heeled dinner party set do have these views and opinions, but if they are so singularly unpleasant, how can we care? It's difficult to determine exactly what Elyot is trying to say with Clapham Junction – that homophobia is still real and in consequence very dangerous? That the general view is that gay men can be universally accepted but only if they behave like the wealthy, urban, heterosexual upper middle-classes? That heterosexual people don't have any kind of secretive, covert sex life? No, straight people don't go cruising for anonymous sex in toilets or parks, but that's only because they don't need to.Elyot paints a deeply depressing picture in Clapham Junction, which may in part reflect the truth, but he fails to find any counterpoint. All is bleak, all is dangerous - hatred, bigotry and prejudice prevail. The minor strand of the young black boy playing his violin in the face of intolerance and persecution only serves to crack the nut with a hammer - we've already learnt that it takes bravery to be who you are in the face of adversity (witness the deeply unsettling, painfully honest encounter between Theo and Tim), so why bludgeon the viewer with this message a second time? The closing scene is gratuitous in light of all we have witnessed before.Shergold and Elyot are well served by their actors, with Treadaway and Mawle in particular offering spectacularly honest, real and brave performances – their plot-strand is perhaps the most challenging, the most unsettling but ultimately the most truthful story, and this time the concluding lack of hope is in proportion and understandable.Moments of brilliance then, from all involved, but in the end Clapham Junction is deeply flawed and devoid of any shred of hope. Is that all there is?