The Riot Club ** (2014, Sam Claflin, Douglas Booth, Max Irons) – Movie Review

Two first-year students at Oxford University are invited to join the infamous elite Riot Club, where they say witty things like ‘I’m sick to f**king death of poor people’ and reputations are made or destroyed in a single riotous evening at the Bull’s Head country inn.

Sam Claflin, Max Irons (both 28) and Douglas Booth (22) head the team of hot, handsome, charismatic, young – but not nearly young enough – actors playing disgustingly degenerate Oxford undergraduates. Giving eye-catching, entertaining performances, they all have a lot of fun with this, and so, I imagine, will a lot of audiences. Men behaving badly is always good screen entertainment. Though not necessarily good in a good way. Sam Reid draws the short straw, playing a stereotypical predatory homosexual called Hugo Fraser-Tyrwhitt coming on to the flawed sort of hero Miles Richards (Irons), with a whiff of homophobia constantly all over his role.

Claflin stars as annoying ex-public school boy Alistair Ryle, while Booth plays the vile character Harry Villiers. They are among the members of the club who enjoy taking drugs, binge drinking and acting violently towards. During the evening at their private dining room at the Bull’s Head, club members intimidate a woman, demanding that she prostitute herself for their sexual gratification.

Gays and Oxford University should sue for defamation, and lovers of good movies might think, if not of suing, at least of asking for their money back after the show. After a bit of a tour of the town, much of it filmed at Winchester College in Hampshire, the film suddenly takes off to a pub in the countryside, where the Riot Club members decide to behave impossibly badly, abusing women and the landlord.

Hang on a minute, though, why has this movie suddenly stopped moving and got stuck in a single location. Oh, I know, it must be based on a play. And it is! It based on Laura Wade‘s play Posh and the film adaptation is by her too. I wasn’t persuaded she knew what she was talking out in this sensationalised account of a real Oxford club, The Bullingdon Club, the all-male undergraduate society that breeds Tory Cabinet members. The one the PM probably wishes he’d never joined at Oxford.

Entertaining though they may be, neither the characters’ actions nor their dialogue ring true for a minute, any more than the place looks like the real Oxford or the Equity members look like real undergraduates. They haven’t a single spot on their face between them, for a start. Dramatically the plot is a mess, with its lurch into dark, almost horror movie territory in its final thriller act totally unconvincing.

It’s not that this is an uninteresting film. It is interesting. It’s just that it needs loads more conviction and credibility, and a lot less sensationalism. It seems like a snidey piece by outsiders jealous of the fun, privileged lives supposedly being lived by the rich insiders. Bizarrely, you end up siding with the Riot Club against the snipers, and you really shouldn’t. It comes over as a celebration of the joys of being a Hooray Henry.

Natalie Dormer, Holliday Grainger and Jessica Brown Findlay draw other short straws as the women involved. You’d think that, with a woman writer, she could have written decent, at least credible parts for women. But she doesn’t. I did enjoy Tom Hollander’s cameo as scheming politician Jeremy. Maybe because he grew up in Oxford, he seems like the real deal.

Booth and Claflin have defended the scenes, denying that the film glamourises the young men’s behaviour.

Booth says the characters do not come across as role models for young people.

‘I don’t think they come out looking anything other than twerps,’ he says. ‘It should provoke thought but I don’t think they look clever or attractive when they’re standing there châteaued beyond belief.’

Claflin says: ‘A part of it makes that sort of world attractive. But I hope people will see what transpires and quickly realise that it’s not a good idea to get too drunk, to take drugs and what have you. The whole point of it was to tease you into that world and make you think you’d love to be rich and do similar things, but hopefully it will scare enough people.’

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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