''Weekender'' is a 2011 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Karl Golden Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl of Austria, last Austrian Emperor * Karl (footballer) (born 1993), Karl Cachoe ...

and starring Jack O'Connell,

Henry Lloyd-Hughes Henry Alexander Lloyd-Hughes is an English actor. He is known for his roles in ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' (2005), '' Unrelated'' (2007), ''The Inbetweeners'' (2008–2010), '' Miliband of Brothers'' (2010), '' Weekender'' (2011), ' ...

Ben Batt Ben Batt (born 7 February 1986) is an English actor, best known for his role as Joe Pritchard in Channel 4's comedy drama '' Shameless''. He has also appeared in ''Scott & Bailey'' as DC Kevin Lumb, Alf Rutter in '' The Village'' and in ''Sire ...

and

Emily Barclay Emily Barclay Ward (born 24 October 1984) is a British-born New Zealand and Australian AFI award winning actress. Career Emily Barclay was born in Plymouth to a General practitioner and a landscape designer, and raised in Auckland, New Zealan ...

. It was written by

Chris Coghill Christopher Coghill (born 11 April 1975http://web.researcha.com/iccquery/detail/?did=816979&c=uk) is a British actor from Prestwich, England, having had roles in '' Shameless'', '' Burn It'', '' Hotel Babylon'', ''The Bill'', '' New Tricks'', ' ...

Plot

1990: The rave scene has arrived from

Ibiza Ibiza (; ; ; #Names and pronunciation, see below) or Iviza is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of th ...

and warehouse parties are exploding across the United Kingdom, bringing phenomenal wealth to the organisers. In Manchester, best mates Matt and Dylan are in their early twenties and long to be more than just punters. As the government moves to outlaw the scene, it's now or never and they quickly rise through the ranks to join the promoting elite. They are taken on a wild journey from the exclusive VIP rooms of London clubs to the outrageous parties in Ibiza super-villas and the hedonism of Amsterdam. It's everything they dreamed of and more. But as their success continues to grow, they attract a more dark and sinister world. Matt and Dylan start to drift apart as they are forced to question the dreams they set out to achieve and their once solid friendship.

Cast

* Jack O'Connell as Dylan *

as Matt *

as John Anderson *

as Claire *

Tom Meeten Tom Meeten (born 30 April 1974) is an English comedian, actor and writer. Life and career Meeten was born in Northampton. He graduated in 1996 from Sheffield Hallam University after studying Fine Arts. His performing career began in a comedy d ...

as Captain Acid/Mickey Muddle *

Stephen Wight Stephen Wight (born Stephen Gray) is an English actor. He won the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his performances in '' Don Juan in Soho'' (2007) at the Donmar Warehouse, He was nominat ...

as Gary Mac *

Zawe Ashton Zawedde Emma Ashton (; born 25 July 1984) is a British actress and playwright. She is best known for her roles in the comedy dramas ''Fresh Meat (TV series), Fresh Meat'' and ''Not Safe for Work (TV series), Not Safe for Work'', the Netflix ho ...

as Sarah *

Dean Andrews Dean Andrews (born 6 August 1963) is an English actor. He is known for his role as DS Ray Carling in the BBC drama series ''Life on Mars''. He continued the role in the sequel series, '' Ashes to Ashes'', until 2010. As of April 2019, he ap ...

as Sargent Thompson * Craig Izzard as Harry *

Sam Hazeldine Samuel Hazeldine (born 29 March 1972) is an English actor working in film, television and theatre. In film he has appeared in '' Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason'' (2004), '' Weekender'' (2010), ''The Raven'' (2012), ''Grimsby'' (2016), and '' ...

as Maurice *

Richard Riddell Richard V. Riddell is an American lighting designer. He has had extensive teaching experience, working at the University of California, San Diego, Harvard University, and Duke University, and also has worked on numerous shows. Early life and ed ...

as Craig *

Perry Fitzpatrick Perry Fitzpatrick is an English actor. He is known for his roles as DS Chris Lomax in the BBC series ''Line of Duty'', Flip in '' This Is England '86'' and ''This Is England '90'', and Hot & Cold in '' Drifters''. Early life Fitzpatrick atten ...

as Chris

Reception

''Weekender'' received generally negative reviews, currently holding a 9% rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 11 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, based on five critics, the film has a 35/100 rating, signifying "generally unfavorable reviews".

Peter Bradshaw Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire'' magazine. Early life and education Bradshaw was educat ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' wrote, "Doing justice to the

rave scene A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

on screen isn't easy, though Justin Kerrigan managed it with charm and wit in his 1999 movie ''

Human Traffic ''Human Traffic'' is a 1999 British independent coming of age comedy-drama film written and directed by Justin Kerrigan. A cult film of the Cool Cymru era of arts in Wales, it stars John Simm, Lorraine Pilkington, Shaun Parkes, Danny Dyer, an ...

''. This film, sadly, is something else again: it's rammed with cliches and silliness and conforms to a lot of stereotypes, the most suspect being the obligatory scene in Ibiza whose only purpose is to show loads of young women with no tops on."

References

External links

* * * 2011 films 2011 drama films British independent films British drama films British buddy drama films Films shot in Amsterdam 2011 independent films Films set in the 1990s Films about drugs Films set in Ibiza Films set in London Films set in Manchester Films set in Amsterdam 2010s buddy drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films Films scored by James Edward Barker English-language independent films English-language buddy drama films {{2010s-UK-film-stub