Director:
Justin Kerrigan
Cast: John Simm (Jip), Lorraine Pilkington (Lulu), Shaun Parkes
(Koop), Danny Dyer (Moff), Nicola Reynolds (Nina), Dean Davies
(Lee), Jan Anderson, Carol Harrison, Justin Kerrigan, Andrew
Lincoln
I
suspect I may the wrong kind of person to review this movie.
There are references here to things that I've never even heard
about, and many of the jokes sound like in-jokes to the British
rave/dance/club music scene. Having said that, it does manage
to be entertaining. "Human Traffic" takes us through
48 hours in the life of a group of twenty-somethings friends
as they gear up for another weekend of rave parties, drugs,
alcohol and hopefully plenty of sex. Jip (John Simm), the
lead character (if there's such a thing in this film) is full
of energy and charm but suffers from impotence brought on
by sexual anxiety. His best friend Lulu (Lorraine Pilkington)
is a gorgeous blond, cool, seemingly in control but somehow
hopeless in finding a decent bloke. Koop (Shaun Parkes) and
Nina (Nicola Reynolds) make up the couple, and then there's
Moff (Danny Dyer) - a likable loser of a drug dealer who provides
one of the most excruciatingly funny moments in the film.
There's
not really a plot as such, but more like a collection of soliloquies,
thoughts on life, speeches to the camera, depiction and satirisation
of archetypes in drug and dance. It's almost like a documentary,
a social comment - except if you tried to tell that to the
director of this film, he'd probably tell you you're full
of shite. And it would be true - this film is infectious,
unapologetically fun, with no intentions of examining any
deep issues except to use it to poke fun and laugh at everything
including itself. It's a guilt-free film that makes an cheerfully
honest statement which makes a lot of people uncomfortable:
people who take drugs are regular, likable people who mean
no harm and are just as normal as anyone else. Will this film
encourage drug taking? Who knows? Somehow I doubt people is
that stupid - and there are a lot of other things that will
get people into drugs. It cheekily lampoons its critics, epitomised
in one scene where Lulu and Nina mocks a journalist doing
a story on drugs in the rave scene. But the characters aren't
exactly idol material: they all have problems, and though
amusing, they are a bit too much like caricatures to make
much of an impact.
The
music is simply gorgeous: Fat Boy Slim, Underworld, Primal
Scream, Orbital, Carl Cox, etc etc. It keeps up the mad energy
of the film, which doesn't let up until the end, where it
sort of meanders back to focus more on the plot that was set
up at the beginning. Even if you don't even get what's been
talked about, the film keeps reminding you that it's all "bollocks",
and you are carried forward by the electric stamina of the
whole thing. Funny, raw and energetic, it's more than it really
is. You don't have to like what these people do, but you can
at least laugh about it.
Eden
Law
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