Perry Kate
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
StarWarsDisco
I don't mind the insane and needless violence portrayed here. Young men full of testosterone who come from poverty or working class conditions is certainly a bad mix that leads to violence and anti-social behaviour in all societies. But what I don't understand is how a gang of idiots can unflinchingly assault police officers, or how one foot soldier can get his ass kicked for a while, then get up and slice a guy's face (or neck? possibly killing a guy?) in front of the police, and then walk away from it all. Is this really a believable situation in Thatcher-era northwestern England?
o owl
As someone who was born in Birkenhead and lived in Wirral for over 30 years, the first thing that struck me was the awful accents. Even I struggled to understand! Hardly surprising that most of the cast is from Manchester. It's difficult too to pin a time on the film, 70s buses and trains then a modern Renault Clio and some recent Merseyrail trains. All of which just make me think 'must try harder'A group of young kids embark on several fights against men 3 of 4 times their age, come out unmarked. Little to make you feel for any characters, a death that comes out of the blue with no real reason.....all in all, not great. My reason for watching....spotting the local landmarks and a decent soundtrack. Perhaps I should have read the book instead.
graham_525
I've just ploughed my way through this mess of a film on DVD. It started off very promising, I liked the music and that it was set in the late 1970s. Also the fact that it was a hooligan film not set in London was very refreshing. However it quickly descended into tedious self indulgent drivel. It was one of those films where after an hour or so you felt that every scene might be the last and the place where it ended didn't make any more sense than it ending anywhere else. The fight scenes were pure fantasy. A bunch of wimpy young lads seemed to be able to go anywhere and turn over gangs of hardened grown men. The violence was also presented as deep and profound as if it was it was the perfect back drop to the tortured sound of bands like Joy Division. When one of The Pack murders the gang leader by cutting in his throat in a crowded pub with no apparent repercussions legal or otherwise I realised this was a a fantasy film. A middle class art students take on what it is to be violent. By the end I was barely aware of what was going on I was so bored. I give it a 3 rather than a 1 for the music, the fashion and the haircuts.
the_rattlesnake25
'Awaydays' is not your typical football hooligan film, the sub-culture of football hooliganism in the early years of Thatcher's Britain is there to set the brooding scene, however it is evocative the homo-erotic relationship between Carty (Nicky Bell) and the eccentric Elvis (Liam Boyle) that takes centre stage and gives Paul Holden's film slightly more depth than simply being a film about men taking out their boredom in the form of fighting on a Saturday afternoon.Paul Carty is a suburban male who is drawn towards the 'The Pack', a group of thugs who take their excitement from fighting on a Saturday afternoon all across Britain, through these encounters he grows closer and closer with a bohemian working-class character in Elvis. Elvis just wants to move away to Berlin and start a new life around people who understand him, while Carty just wants to find direction in his life after his mother's death. As they connect through their mutual love of Bowie, the Liverpudlian music scene and Art, they develop an increasingly complex relationship that is bordering on the homoerotic. It is this intricate bond between these two seemingly different, yet very similar and flawed 'men' that keeps the film ticking over. If you removed this key component then the film falls a little flat, with Kevin Sampson's script missing out many explanations to key elements such as why Carty is drawn towards the allure of the 'The Pack' in the first place and the death of John. With that said, it is hauntingly shot with a soundtrack that compliments Pat Holden's sombre directorial style, and even though at times he has a tendency to delve too much into the LSD-induced hallucinogenic state's of both boys minds, he does it with little expense to the viewer.If you want a film that doesn't simply look at the male phenomenon of having a good scrap on a Saturday afternoon because we're all bored and working class zombies in a capitalist machine ('Football Factory', 'Green Street') then 'Awaydays' is for you, as it offers just that bit more and is akin to something of a 'football-love-story'.
