Review of Awaydays (2009) by Tim L — 04 Jun 2009

Did you know that Liverpool was rife with football hooliganism in the Seventies? Oh, you did. And in the Eighties, you say. And the Nineties - and still!! Well, really? In Liverpool? Who would have thought it?

It seems the cool thing to do at the time was to get mucked out in your coolest parka clobber and Adidas trainers and head down the local (or in this case - someone else's) football park and start ripping the shit out of each other. You know, for fun an' tha'. Only the In-crowd and the criminally unhinged were allowed into these exclusive sects, which basically means that the whole of Merseyside was involved.

Here we follow the story of Carty and his mate Elvis, who regularly attend such festivities in an attempt to forget about their painful past and their God awful current situation - and the fact that they live in Liverpool. Elvis, being the gay dreamer of the group, wants to get away to Berlin where he can happily play out his homosexual fantasies in tight leather gear without the fear of being ripped a new arsehole by his so-called mates. Carty just wants to fight and get hurt. His Mum died, you see - and that means he's got Carte Blanche to act like a fuckwit and beat the crap out of anyone who happens to live in a different postcode.

Despite being rather intelligent and having good taste in popular culture, these boys find it hard to escape their roots and decide to opt for drugs, booze and fighting instead of cool underground clubs and indie music shops. Yes, it certainly is Grim Up North.

But just in case you thought there might be something else to this story other than how bad it is to live in Liverpool - I'm afraid you're not going to get it. You'll just have to settle for what it is - a directionless story about directionless youths in a directionless time.

This is a real shame, because the acting and the direction are really very good. The images on screen are well put together and involving, pulling you along nicely for the time you spend in your seat. But in the end we haven't really gone anywhere - and we certainly haven't learned anything, apart from maybe that violence really doesn't solve anything.

What could have been a nice little treatise on the power of self-reliance and the consequences of self-annihilation, only comes out as a waste of time with a few fights in the middle. Not really worth it - not even to get away for a few hours. Shame(less) really.