A Weekend Wasted (Human Traffic (DVD))

Member Name: utero

Product:	Human Traffic (DVD)
Date:	12/12/02 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Soundtrack

Disadvantages: Annoying, No Story, Goes Nowhere

......is not a wasted weekend, that's what David Dickinson is currently saying on his MTV promo. This would pretty much sum up the spirit of Human Traffic. A film that is targeted at all those people who like nothing better than to get mashed off their tits from Friday through to Sunday. The film focuses on the loves and lives of five people who spend the week working mudane jobs purely to fund the weekend and take in the blur of pubs, clubs, parties, booze and of course drugs.

I'd like to say that the film actually has a plot but it doesn't, instead you get 90 minutes of people taking drugs, drinking, larking about and shouting at each other on meeting up. Does that make a good film? Not really, in fact the majority of my experience with the film was tedious. You can actually compare it to someone who's on another planet through alcohol and drugs. In their own head they think they're the best person in the world, certainly the funniest. In fact they're the most annoying person in the world 5 minutes after it was mildly amusing.

Now I have to say I'm not a large fan of dance music or club culture but I appriciate it has it's appeal to a lot of people. However it doesn't really have any place in a film where there's no real story to back it up. It's mantra of saying that drugs are cool was one that I found somewhat uncomfortable. At one point it makes the point that 30,000 people die from alcohol a year in the UK, it defends drug use when really it's blinkered by the fact that drugs have ruined many a fruitful life through addiction etc.

The acting in the film is passable, John Simm leads a bunch of young british actors who step up the the plate although they really aren't given anything to play with. Just when you think the film is about to turn into some morality tale it lapses back into beer drinking. Director Justin Kerrigan has obviously lived this life before, his style isn't ama
zing. This is a very laddish and direct approach with some music video style tricks. Sadly the film suffers from that grim britain feel. I long to see a british film that actually isn't shot like a BBC drama and actually has some flare in it. Still I'm the budget had something to do with that.

Interestingly enough there has just been a producers cut released on dvd. This is a cut that has no input from the director and I'd reccomend avoiding it. The only person who should ever have the right to tinker with a film and change it from it's original cut is the director. Sadly stories seem to suggest that Justin Kerrigan has been shafted throughout the whole process.

This isn't really a film I like but I can understand why some people would enjoy it.

Summary: