Twin Town

Twin Town cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Trainspotting, simply because it is a completely different film, the fact that they are both set in squalid urban surroundings and involve drugs is incidental. Twin Town is basically a sequence of revenge acts between two groups of people linked in all sorts of ways. The Twins to whom the title refers might as well be cardboard cutouts, for the lack of personalities, but you find yourself sympathetic with them despite their debauchery. Likewise the death of the Lewis family (minus the sons) is a very sad moment, despite the fact that they have been portrayed so shallowly. This is the success of the film, the way it manipulates your emotions to leave you genuinely shaken by the violence in the events leading up to the climax, whereas the opening of the film leads you to expect a light-hearted farce. Watching it again it is easy to divide the film into two sections, but very difficult to pin down where the change of pace and mood begins. The humour and irony is superb, particularly the razor sharp sarcasm of Adie. Although a very seedy picture of Wales is presented, this presents a very positive view of the people of Swansea and manages not to be anti-English in the slightest despite the obvious nationalistic feel. The acting is great, and as long as you aren`t expecting anything like Trainspotting and you let the humour wash over you you`ll enjoy this.

I enjoyed the film, but can easily see how others might not feel as I did. When I saw the preview, I was immediately interested in the movie -- despite the fact that the preview I saw revealed nothing about the film itself. The most I ever get to learn or hear about Wales is through reading Hollinshed's histories of the middle ages. It was interesting to see a film actually set in a modern Welsh town.

Besides, it was f'ing hilarious.

Very very funny.

A sleeper hiding in the dusty back shelves of the video store, that I took out one night with curiosity and no expectations. I'm three-quarters English, a quarter Welsh and have spent a long time in Australia, but I don't think it was just the Welsh part of me that enjoyed this movie.

I loved its roughness, its quirkiness, its lack of perfection and its reality and sure! some of the characters were grubby, superficial and less than enervating.

This is a loosely woven picture of reality in an under-privileged urban environment with all the mundanity, idiocy, drama, violence, beauty and humour of everyday life that eddies around us, and in this instance, the Lewis twins. There are a couple of truly hilarious scenes that very few actors could emulate, but the twins in the movie are twins in real life and it flows naturally.

Revenge escalates inevitably beyond the frivolous into the 'deadly' serious with a speed and abandonment that has you gasping. But unlike some movies that lose it at the end, this one magically gathers in all the loose threads and delivers a finale of epic proportions that elegantly spans the coldly ruthless and the vauntingly sublime and leaves you with a sense of deep justice.

GREAT. This is the sort of stuff the Americans don't do very often or very well, and mostly misunderstand when someone else does it properly. This was done properly.

Reviewers disappointed by an inevitable comparison with Trainspotting obviously missed a lot of the subtle stuff in both movies that is exclusive to the towns, times and cultures they portray. They got sidetracked by the 'big' issues ....

Shelve your preconceptions, grab the remote and replay all those bits that are hard to catch if your ear isn't tuned to the accent. Sure it helps if bad language doesn't get in the way of enjoyment, but let's face it, you should be used to those Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic words by now - so if you can handle it, this one's a delight - but it'll never be mainstream.

Danny Boyle is in many ways the British answer to Quentin Tarantino. Despite Boyle not having complete authority over TWIN TOWN, his trademarks are definitely present, and many parts of this film are truly excellent. However, the film as a whole seems to lack true continuity, as it seems to be a loose, simple plot formed by sporadic situations that the writers feel are funny (in many ways they are). Which brings me on to the Tarantino connection - one has to only watch 20 minutes of his films to realise the man is in love with situations - whether they be from circumstance or dialogue. However Quentin is the true master of this kind of film-making. A lesser creator will provide interesting and funny scenes, but with a taste of incompletion left in the mouth.

That said, TWIN TOWN is acted wonderfully, and the Swansea setting makes for some interesting and novel humour. Whereas some of the violence seems a little contrived, it is refreshing to see new kinds of film-making, and moreso to see it grow from the mind of Brits!

It suddenly occurred to me while watching this film that, whether by accident or design, I've seen a whole lot of films that star Rhys Ifans. His brother Llyr appears with him here, the lesser-experienced brother that had previously only appeared in Ymadawiad Arthur and has made no further films to date. He does adequately, yet watching this - Rhys' second cinema film - it becomes clear he's the star.

Off-puttingly touted as the "Welsh Trainspotting" - because who wants imitations? - this is really nothing of the sort, and is far more impressive than you would expect. Already three years old, it has yet to be shown on British terrestrial television and nor do I expect it ever will be. It's content is morally vacuous, including police corruption, joyriding, drug taking, animal killings and murder. Peppering the script are a man who breaks his wife's nose, massage parlour brothels, female masturbation and almost continuous usage of the f-word.

If that hasn't already put you off, this is a tale that features two bath-sharing brothers, who, after being refused compensation for their father's broken leg, take revenge by urinating on their enemy's daughter. However, Twin Town, bizarrely, never really offends, as it is done in, despite the subject matter, a good-natured tone. And I did have to smile at the real-life names of the dogs that feature in this tale of cocaine dealers - Charlie and Snowy. I wonder if that was intentional?

What really grips about Twin Town is that, in the age of the depleted UK film industry, it lacks the desperate mugging and dead laugh areas that characterise the 1990s British "comedy". A desperate, "please love us America, please give us your box office, we're begging", which is normally prevalent in the genre, is almost wholly absent here. (For further information on such a desperate breed, see Rhys' first major film: "Notting Hill") Okay, there is the overstatement that sees a male voice choir singing Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime", or the twins joyriding their own father's hearse, but generally this film, despite the extremities of it's plot, does keep an eye towards realism and naturalistic dialogue. And the overlong, feeble "comic pauses" that normally kill off the rotting carcasses of British Film are nowhere to be found, due to a constantly moving, frenetic pace.

The only down side to all this is that, apart from Rhys who has appeared in, to date, ten movies after this, the rest of the crew involved haven't achieved success. In fact, this was the first feature of the two writers involved and they haven't written another film since, presumably due to its lacklustre showing at the box office. A great shame, as Twin Town is well worth watching.