Rude Boy (1980)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Blistering performances.

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.

It is genuinely difficult to work out where the drama ends and the documentary takes over. When I sat down to watch it I had no idea whether Ray, the fan who becomes a roadie, was an actor or the genuine article. The stilted nature of some of the conversations, and self-conscious grins accompanying them, indicate contrivance, but it's as if real conversations are being reproduced for the camera. Only afterwards did I discover that Ray Gange was acting and had written the script.The film provides an insight into the world of punk rock in the late seventies. The Clash were more musically adept, and more politically aware, than most punk bands of the era, but the rebellious swaggers and the anger were typical enough. The concert footage is entertaining, and only marred by the fact that much is filmed from the back of the stage. It features much of the band's best material, from White Riot to Tommy Gun to London's Burning. This is a nostalgic treat for old punk rockers, and a useful introduction for those who, in the late 70s, were too young or allowed punk rock to pass them by.

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.

I don't know what the other reviewers of this film were smoking when they watched it, but Rude Boy does not give any sort of an accurate representation of the political climate in England during the time of filming. In addition to that the storyline is so convoluted that there are only two clear ideas in the story. A) That Mick Jones is a prick. and B) That Rude Boy Ray is a drunk. That's it. Oh by the way, there's also some second movie within the movie about this black guy who gets nicked by the law. But that must not be important because it doesn't actually go anywhere and has nothing to do with The Clash. And the National Front have a cameo, too. That is perhaps the best part. And the live tracks are pretty impressive as well. My Opinion: Go to your friend's house and watch it. If you like it, pirate it. If you really like it, buy it. **1/