With SXSW underway, we jumped at the chance to check out some fresh. hot. and unique movies coming out this week! The first film that we got a chance to check out is called Pirates by Reggie Yates.
So without further ado, let’s jump into the film and as always we base our reviews on the film’s story, acting, and overall performance.
Story 6/10
This story takes place in the past, quite a bit about 22 years in the past. In 1999, Cappo is returning to his hometown from university to his best two friends. These three friends had worked together to be musicians, but since Cappo has been away at school the two others, Two Tonne and Kidda, have been running a pirate radio station and gaining some minor attention. With all of them together, the three friends decide they should celebrate New Year’s Eve in a spectacular way, with women, with status, and at the most impressive party of the year. What better way to enter into a new millennium.
Cappo, played by Elliot Edusah, has bad news for his friends though, as he has made the choice to not come back home, and is only stopping in before he returns to his long-term plans at university.
His friends are stuck in blue-collar jobs, one is a warehouse manager, the other doing odd jobs for his criminal (?) Uncle. But they have hopes and plans of making it big in the music industry, and think Cappo being back in town is the good omen that proves they are about to break it in the industry. While his friends think this is the beginning of the fun, Cappo is building up the nerve to explain that it’s the final hurrah. As the group bumbles their way through attempting to get into the big event of the year, they push their friendships to the limit.
This is a lot of fun for a story, it’s a very British film though. The cast speaks with thick English slang, the locations and venues they visit are very strongly rooted in English customs and locals. If you aren’t from there or haven’t visited it can be a bit of a struggle, but for the most part, a lot of the journey for the characters is very universal. It’s a story about friends trying to achieve a goal outside of their comfort zone and the mistakes they make along the way. If you’ve ever been a stupid kid, you can see a little of yourself in their journey.
Acting 7/10
I think of the cast, the over-the-top responses and choices in the script don’t make either Jordan Peters or Elliot Edusah stand above one each other for their skill, as they are just playing what appears to be polar opposites in the film for their maturity. The cast member that comes off as loveable and stands above the two others is Reda Elazouar who plays Kidda. His childlike attitude and responses to the chaos around him are incredibly loveable and he shines throughout the entire movie. He represents the heart of the group.
Overall 7/10
At the end of the story, the boys have learned that what was important was not so much about the party they were at, but the people they were with when the new year started. New Year’s Eve is about spending time with the people you love, and no matter where your life takes you, you might be leaving home, but you aren’t leaving your friends. There is something beautiful about that conclusion, and while I don’t appreciate a lot of the inappropriate behavior the group takes throughout the film, I enjoy the destination they landed on.
Conner’s Final Thoughts
There is something very fun about this experience. The friendship and mistakes they make remind me of the group of friends in Ali G In Da House, and while I hope I’m not just conflating the two works of cinema due to how English they both are, I feel the energy at its base is similar, while Pirates has a much more realistic and heartfelt feel to it, while the Ali G film pushes the boundaries of absurdity.
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