Throughout its lifetime, rock n' roll has had its share of scenes and times. In the late 1960s, San Francisco was the place to be if you were into the sounds of the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and taking acid. In the late 70s, disco ruled at New York City's Studio 54 were everybody was shaking their booties to the sounds of the Bee Gees, Donna Summers, and snorting cocaine, drinking booze, and having wild sex. In the 80s, Los Angeles was filled with groupies and drugs as the bombastic hair-metal scene ruled the world. Like many scenes before and since, they come and go. They start out as innocent fun and then all that fun comes with a price with deaths, money losses, and everything else.

In 2002, British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom decided to make a movie on one particular music scene that he loved. The music scene in Manchester from the late 70s to the early 1990s that was led by bands like Joy Division/New Order, the Happy Mondays, 808 State, the Smiths, Stone Roses, Charlatans UK, James, Oasis, the Inspiral Carpets, and many more.

Manchester was once was a strong steel-mill town back in the England that by the post-World War II era, Manchester had been reduced to rubble and economic turmoil and by the late 70s, it grew worse. Early bands from Manchester like the Moody Blues and the Bee Gees (they lived in Manchester during their early childhood but technically, they're from Australia since they lived their most of their lives until they became pop stars) didn't give a full representation of Manchester rather than representing the entire country of Britain in the days of the British Invasion back in the 1960s. As the mid-70s began, punk was the rage and Manchester became a springboard for new and influential bands to come.

Michael Winterbottom and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Bryce decided to focus on the Manchester music scene from the days of the post-punk scene and the opening of Factory Records from the late 70s to the days of the rave-culture of the late 80s and early 90s that was taking place in the club called the Hacienda. The movie was called 24 Hour Party People named after the song by the Happy Mondays.

24 Hour Party People chronicles the rise and fall of one of the best independent record labels in the U.K., Factory Records from 1976 to 1992. The main protagonist of the film is Factory Records founder and British TV journalist Tony Wilson (played marvelously by Steve Coogan) who takes the audience on a journey through three acts from the day the Sex Pistols played their only appearance in Manchester to the days when Factory Records and the Hacienda was making Manchester the party capital of the world, to its crushing and expected fall through money losses and dwindling interest.

While some will be upset over the fact that great Manchester-based rock bands like the Smiths, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, and Charlatans UK aren't mentioned in the movie, that's because they're not part of the story involving Factory Records although all those bands did contribute greatly to the Manchester music scene. The film focuses on bands like the post-punk icon Joy Division that would later reform as New Order in the second act and the dance-psychedelic romp of the Happy Mondays who destroyed everything in their path including Factory Records.

While the scene might be obscure for some, 24 Hour Party People is an enjoyable and chaotic journey where punks slam-danced and club-goers getting f*cked up on ecstasy filmed in a documentary style cinematography by Robby Muller with rare concert footages and dramatic reenactments all for your enjoyment.

The film begins in 1976 Manchester were Tony Wilson was by then a successful TV journalist in his hometown but finds himself unfulfilled after doing a report on the craze of gliding. He wants to find something exciting and his friend Alan Erasmus (Lennie James) told him to go to a concert that is going to happen in a small club at Manchester. Tony takes his wife Lindsay (Shirley Henderson) to the club with Alan and thirty-nine other people. Performing that night were the Sex Pistols during their Anarchy in the U.K. tour where they only lasted a few gigs throughout the whole tour.

Wilson described the people who attended that show as who was there during the Last Supper. Attending that infamous Pistols concert (with rare footage from Julien Temple's film The Filth & The Fury on that show) were a bunch of people who would later become famous. The Smiths' Johnny Marr and Steven Morrissey, the Buzzc*cks Steve Shelly and Howard Devoto (played by Martin Hancock), Joy Division's Bernard Sumner (John Simm), Peter Hook (Ralf Little), Stephen Morris (Tim Horrocks), and Ian Curtis (eerily played by Sean Harris), Joy Division/New Order manager Rob Gretton (Paddy Considine), Mick Hucknall of Simply Red, and Martin Hannett (Andy Serkis), who would become the producer for Joy Division/New Order and the Happy Mondays.

The historical Sex Pistols gig inspired Tony Wilson to create his own TV special on the burgeoning punk rock scene that included rare footage of bands like the Buzzc*cks, Siouxsie & The Banshees, the Clash, Iggy Pop, and the Stranglers. The show was a hit in Manchester particularly with a couple of young kids named Shaun and Paul Ryder (played respectively by Danny Cunningham and Paul Popplewell) who were huge fans of the show. The show didn't last as Tony decided to make a new club with club-owner Don Tonay (Peter Kay) to be called the Factory where they would showcase new local bands.

On the day of the club opening, the Buzzc*cks and Joy Division (they were known by Warsaw at this point) played while Tony was summoned by Tonay to go into a van and get a blow-job from a hooker. Lindsay catches him and Tony was like "Oh honey, it's not what it seems. I love you! Just give me a few minutes". Lindsay just walked away from Tony as she decided to go back into the club and f*ck Howard Devoto in the bathroom where Tony catches the two but in his Manchesterian tone, he played it cool, asked Lindsay for the keys and said nothing to Howard and walks away. While he walks away, he passes by a bathroom cleaner (played none other than the real Howard Devoto, in the first of several cameos made by people from that scene including Tony Wilson himself) who says, "I don't remember any of this happening".

Tony decides to create a label called Factory where he wrote a contract in his own blood where states that the label and the artists get fifty percent of all monies made while the artists have total control and the rights to their own music. The first band he signed was Joy Division and he took them to the studio with the wild, excessive Martin Hannett who was this big man who liked to do indulge himself with his own excess. While recording the song She's Lost Control, Hannett takes Stephen Morris outside to do his drum parts until Hannett tells him to stop, unfortunately as they finished the song, Hannett forget to tell Morris to stop as he kept playing throughout the night (poor Stephen). During the first act of the film, Joy Division becomes a club favorite in Manchester propelled by Ian Curtis' cold, deep vocals and his stiff-robotic dance (think Al Gore doing the robot in a cold, twisted intensity). Joy Division becomes a hit in the U.K. independent rock scene as he also signed A Certain Ratio and Durutti Column.

As Joy Division begins to breakthrough, trouble emerges as Ian Curtis (who is a manic depressive that suffers from epilepsy) has an epileptic seizure that stops the show and he begins to bleed from his mouth as Tony and the rest of Joy Division begin to worry. As they return home, manager Rob Gretton tells the band that he got the band some gigs in the U.S., which excited Joy Division, but Curtis was suffering from the aftereffects of his seizure. As Tony Wilson makes more plans to expand his Factory empire, Curtis makes a visit to the Wilson house and asked for but wasn't there as he went home and on May 18, 1980, he hung himself.

The scene leading to Curtis' death had been cleaned up so it didn't look as gruesome as it was told. In the movie, Curtis is watching an American TV program as he is troubled by his own manic state but in reality, Curtis was listening to Iggy Pop's seminal 1977 solo debut with David Bowie The Idiot as he prepared to hang himself. Curtis' death marks the end of act one as a video (directed by Anton Corbijn) made to the song Atmosphere shot in a beach with people wearing hooded clothing in a black-and-white setting. On the day of Curtis' funeral, Lindsay tells Tony that she's leaving him and is moving out as Tony accepts the news and moved forward.

The second act begins in 1982 as Tony, Alan, and Rob make plans to create a new dance club called the Hacienda as Tony had a fallout with Martin Hannett over creative differences. While that's going on, Tony talks about the antics of Shaun and Paul Ryder where they throw bread (with rat poison inside) to pigeons in a hilarious scene were about 3500 pigeons croaked to death and fell down on the roof of where the two brothers were on that lead to Tony to reply, "None of those pigeons were harmed in the making of the film, they were all fake". In 1983, the members of Joy Division reformed as New Order with keyboardist Gillian Gilbert (Anna Tyborczyk) in a scene where they create the song Blue Monday that ends up becoming the biggest-selling 12-inch single ever but to the surprise of many, the group never made money since all that money they made went to investing the Hacienda that would turn out to be one of the worst business decisions by Wilson, New Order, and all involved in Factory.

As the Hacienda begins to open and slowly, club goers start to get in, there is a hilarious scene involving a UFO where Shaun Ryder sees the thing and coming to him is a crazy dancer with an appetite for drugs named Bez (Chris Coghill), as he, Shaun and Paul Ryder and a few other musicians formed the Happy Mondays. The Happy Mondays begin to make music that blended the elements of psychedelia, dance, and hip-hop that would mark a revolution in the years to come.

Tony signs the band and their first record was a minor success but their appetite for drugs including crack, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and other things fueled their creative and Tony decided to give them drugs to make them happy. Tony decides to bring in Martin Hannett to produce the Happy Mondays' second album Bummed where the collaboration was a wild, excessive time that made the Happy Mondays stars in the U.K. as they went on a tour filled with sex, drugs, and alcohol as Tony went for the ride doing cocaine, sleeping with women, and getting knocked off his mind as the Hacienda became the place to be as the rave culture went well underway. Tony was at his happiest as everything around him became successful, even obtaining a new love from a former Miss United Kingdom named Yvette, who he eventually married and had a family with that today is still going strong.

As the Hacienda and Factory Records were now the rage, Tony began to expand his empire again as he build a new office with a really expensive table that angered Rob Gretton about the overspending Tony and Factory was doing. As New Order and the Happy Mondays made huge-selling albums in the U.K. with Technique and Pill, Thrills, & Bellyaches respectively, it looks like things were going great but as the third act begins, it all falls apart.

With the new drug ecstasy becoming the craze for the rave culture, the Hacienda begins to lose money as club-goers spend more money on the ecstasy rather than the bar and drug dealers came around fighting against each other or anyone with money and even coming to the Hacienda became dangerous. Other problems concerning the Factory Empire were the Happy Mondays who were in the Barbados working on album but the band spend more money on their drug use rather than working on the album.

Then in 1991, Martin Hannett dies all of a sudden of a heart attack, as he becomes another casualty in the Manchester scene as Tony feels a dark cloud looming over him. Then he learns that all the money he had made through the Hacienda and Factory records were non-existent since all the investors and bands spent their money on the Hacienda or on drugs. More problems arose as the Happy Mondays tried to hide their album Yes, Please from Tony until he gave Shaun Ryder money from his pocket. As he and the board at Factory heard Yes, Please, they were wondering where are the vocals and what the hell is this. Plus, Tony learned that the music scene known as "Madchester" was losing interest as the American rock scene of Nirvana arrived as an assault the stale, pop music scene of the 1980s.

By 1992, Factory was in trouble, the Happy Mondays were killing themselves with drugs, New Order was in turmoil over creative tension, the Hacienda was getting trouble with the police, and Factory was losing money. Tony decided to call in an executive at London Records to strike a deal to distribute the new Happy Mondays album for a meeting with Factory, London, and the Happy Mondays as Shaun Ryder goes "I'm gonna go out for some Kentucky Fried Chicken" ("Kentucky Fried Chicken" is a slang for "heroin" in Britain) as the executive from London offered Tony to sell Factory for five million pounds along with the entire catalog as Tony decided to sell the thing but didn’t want to be regarded as a sellout since for years, he had tried to maintain his promise from the original contract he wrote in his blood and suddenly, Factory Records was over and Tony held a final blowout at the Hacienda for the final time.

The years since the fall of Factory had been fruitful for its counterparts. Tony Wilson tried another experiment for Factory in the mid-90s but closed it for good and moved to Canada with his family where he became a successful TV producer. The Happy Mondays broke up after the poor reception Yes, Please received as Shaun Ryder and Bez formed Black Grape to some success before breaking up as Shaun and Paul Ryder live quietly in Britain drug-free. The Hacienda tried to stay alive for a few years in the mid-90s but London's electronica scene destroyed the Manchester dance scene as the Hacienda became demolished in 2000.

In early 1999, Rob Gretton died of a heart attack as he tried to run the career of New Order in the 1990s when the group was in turmoil. New Order, eventually, survived Gretton's death and recouped the money losses and in 2001, staged a successful comeback with their album Get Ready which was followed by a successful world tour and in 2002, scored a hit with their collaboration with fellow Manchesterians the Chemical Brothers with the song Here To Stay that appears in the soundtrack to this film.

24 Hour Party People is an amazing film at a music scene that had its good times and bad times. While the American audience might have trouble understanding its slang, humor, or culture, it is an enjoyable but strange trip to watch. Michael Winterbottom did an excellent job with the film taking it from its late 70s tone to its maniacal rave culture of the early 90s. Fans who enjoyed the music of Manchester will definitely enjoy this film. Where have many films about the music scene had failed in previous years, 24 Hour Party People does justice to a scene that was fun and mind-blowing.

Michael Winterbottom Films:

I Want You (1998):

http://www.epinions.com/content_392856309380

Wonderland (1999):

http://www.epinions.com/content_367797636740

The Claim (2000):

(Coming Soon)

In This World (2002):

http://www.epinions.com/content_145666576004

Code 46 (2003):

http://www.epinions.com/content_394013675140

9 Songs (2004):

http://www.epinions.com/content_290447658628

Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2005):

http://www.epinions.com/content_297383136900

The Road to Guantanamo (2006):

http://www.epinions.com/content_397638405764

A Mighty Heart (2007):

http://www.epinions.com/content_381302509188



Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age