Put simply, this is awesome Clash footage of their late first album/early second album shows. I'd suggest getting a DVD version though, because having to fast forward through all the "plot" is really annoying after a while. I basically only watch it for the Clash footage, because Ray Gange's character is a real tool and practically unwatchable after once through.I must admit I love the scene when Joe is washing his Brigade Rosse shirt and he holds it up and widens his eyes when he's talking about it, like it's scary or something. It's also funny watching this gritty punk rocker scratch dirt off the shirt with his fingernail or Topper kicking the hell out of Ray in a yellow jumpsuit for no reason whatsoever.Joe comes off real well, Topper and Paul come off as party guys and Mick comes off as a real jerk. I don't know why, but this may be his jerk rock star coke phase, hence the goofy puffy shirt and vest ensembles. I heard he was a real nice guy though.

...despite copying the musicians in the studio trope, the porn-shop as symbol of capitalism and the black/white subplot. However "Rude Boy" perhaps deserves a little more attention than it seems to have received.As a 'proper movie' it's kind of a washout. Aiming for an improvised cinema-verite feel, it's hamstrung by a fatal lack of tension, having apparently been assembled by people with little grasp of editing, narrative or any kind of cinematic style. Despite this, the concert footage of The Clash is indispensable to anyone with an interest in the era, and shows why they were one of the all-time great rock and roll bands. We have very few 70's punk bands recorded properly on film as opposed to video and the difference in quality is striking. Also, Joe Strummer's death is still quite recent as I write and seeing him here in his prime is poignant in the extreme.In general there are very few film documents of punk. We have Jarman's "Jubilee" which was more of a neo-Elizabethan fantasia, "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" with its McClarenite rewriting of history and come-lately nonsense like "Breaking Glass". "Rude Boy" at least doesn't fall into any narrative clichés (if only by barely having a plot) and by its very lack of creative flair may succeed best in giving a picture of the time. For example, unlike the myth-making of the likes of "Sid and Nancy", this shows punk gigs as they actually were - largely populated by lads with feather-cuts and tank tops. By concentrating on hanger-on Gange instead of the band itself, the filmmakers turn the story into one of the relationship between the band and its fan-base - pointed up by having Strummer sing "All The Young Punks" right through in the studio without the backing track to distract us from the lyric. The commentator who said this did not give a true picture of the politics of the time is surely wrong. I was there and it seems pretty accurate to me. We see the resurgent National Front, the Anti-Nazi League, the bullishness and racism of the police at the time (which would shortly lead to the Brixton riots) and the rise of Thatcherism out of the bankrupt Butskellite consensus. Ray Gange's character in the film seems intended to represent the British white working class at the time - confused, politically disengaged and borderline racist, the attitudes which led to the Thatcher victory we see at the end of the film. The left, variously represented by the SWP (bureaucratic) and Strummer (by turns tokenistic and diffident) fails to capture Gange's imagination and it is the right who seize on the desire for change and turn it to their own advantage.Rude Boy is a strange curate's egg, then. There may have been a really good film struggling to get out of this morass, but we'll never know. The special edition DVD has a "Just Play the Clash" function which lets you view only the concert footage and I suspect this will get a lot of use.Rating? 3/10 for the story, 10/10 for the music.

I still remember sitting in my living room, in front of the TV and I was getting quite bored. Several times throughout the film I got up and was ready to turn off because I thought it was about to end...but then suddenly, it carrys on. I only carried on watching due to curiosity. I think i was getting to a point where I was hoping Ray would get shot in the head from close range or something similarly exciting would happen.I love the Clash and have no critisism towards them, its just this film was abit pointless. Half the time, you don't know what Ray is talking about. If he was a friend of mine, I've have punched him in the face before I'd said "Hi" to him.Anyway, watch it if you want but I'm not anymore. I now have the incredibly hard task of selling the DVD to someone stupid enough. If I get 20p for it I'll be happy.

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.