On Sky Movies Premiere today at 6.10pm
A schoolboy who is forbidden to watch TV and films by his religious family, gets involved in making a home movie with the school tearaway after seeing a bootleg copy of Stallone’s Rambo: First Blood.
Capturing the serious world of playground politics as well as the joys of the childhood imagination, this British coming-of-age comedy both amused and moved me when I saw it while ago.
But I almost didn’t see it. I’m someone with an inbuilt anti-action movie reflex, you see, so the nod to Sly Stallone’s Vietnam veteran in the title put me off. Additionally, I’m not naturally drawn to kids on screen, so was deterred by the idea of its pre-pubescent cast.
To be honest, I gave this film a glance for just one reason: I was a child/teen of the 1980s and this is a tale of kids growing up in the early 1980s. I fancied a nostalgia trip.
My 1980s was the decade of grubby white jackets, plastic beads and poodle perms, Bruno and Doris, Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson, Frankie Says and Alive in 85 t-shirts, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Mini Kievs, Krystle, Alexis and shoulder pads.
It may not capture my personal 80s highlights, but this film still portrays a 1980s that’s very familiar to me. Yes, it’s the decade of Rambo: First Blood, but it’s also the decade of wild and wacky hairstyles, bulky have-to-buy-a-piece-of-furniture-to-house-them video recorders, costly hugely-coveted camcorders and French exchange students.
Who can forget the French exchange students? They arrived en masse with their alarming confidence and their obligatory matching rucksacks, eclipsing our provincial white stilletoed style with their Benetton brilliance.
Ah, the memories come flooding back, rather like one particularly unforgettable bottle of Blue Nun, but that’s another story…
