If you are a fan of The Clash and watched Rude Boy at any time then you would find plenty to enjoy. It has enough footage of The Clash throughout it, weaving a narrative between a number of energetic gig clips, and the soundtrack contains a good selection of some of their greatest hits. If you’re not a fan of The Clash then you may find this a tougher watch, but I would implore you to give it your time. Especially right now.
Ray Gange, who also co-wrote the screenplay with co-director David Mingay, plays Ray, a young lad who works in a sex shop and spends his free time wanting to enjoy the music of The Clash, get drunk, and generally sneer at different factions of society around him, apart from other punk rock fans. He gets a boost when allowed to work with the band, learning some of the tricks required to set up and maintain the instruments and staging, but this also gives him a slightly different perspective on the attitudes and lifestyle choices of people who may have been exactly like him just a few years earlier. Or maybe they always had a better head on their shoulders, and maybe Ray needs to figure out a better way to direct his anger at the many issues causing it.
Released in 1980, it is slightly depressing to see how much of Rude Boy feels like it could be a snapshot of the Britain of today, over 40 years later. We have so many of the same problems now, but we don’t have enough opportunities to listen to The Clash at full volume (although, if you can, treat yourself right now . . . go on, blast out Tommy Gun, or Complete Control, or Janie Jones, and you will feel better already). Those in control of the country don’t seem to care enough about those they are meant to be serving, racial and class division is being stirred up in an attempt to distract everyone from the real source of their problems, and there’s an economy that feels very much like it’s in the toilet, despite news reports constantly telling us how lucky we have been that the UK has avoided a recession.
Directors Jack Hazan and Mingay do well with a script that throws a lot against the graffiti-covered walls. They are helped by the fact that a lot of it sticks, much more than expected, and the energy and attitude throughout every main sequence helps the 133-minute runtime go by briskly enough. In fact, I could easily have watched another hour of this, especially if it meant time for another 5 or 6 snippets of The Clash performing live. Part documentary, part concert film, and part standard narrative feature, the parts slot together perfectly to make a hugely satisfying whole.
The acting might not always be on point, but nobody is embarrassingly awful. Gange plays his character in a way that is believably frustrating and confrontational, and The Clash (Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon) are exactly how you hope they would be: talented, witty, cynical, happy to use their status to try and win some minor battles against the authorities. Other performances are more varied in quality, but the core of the film is about Ray and The Clash, and they do more than enough to carry the material.
A snapshot of then, a reflection of now. I loved Rude Boy, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who shares some of my main sensibilities. I won’t be bothered by those who end up disliking it though (and it should be noted that The Clash themselves weren’t fans once the film was finished). I will just sneer at them from afar. It feels like the right thing to do.
9/10
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