U.S. DVD Artwork
16 Years of Alcohol
(Tartan Video / R1 NTSC DVD)
Review by Adam Tracey
Once you get out of the horror or sci-fi realm where a disconnect from reality is par for the course and you no longer are dealing with psycho killers trying to anally violate you with the sharp object of their choosing the most important thing a director can do for their movie is to create an emotional connection with the audience. But what happens when the viewer has no experience with or can find no common ground to tread on with the film’s subject matter or characters? There in lies the rub for me.
Frankie has lived his life in a constant on and off again love affair with the sauce. We meet Frankie when he is about 5 minutes from taking a big time beat down all about the chest and stomach from some former pals of his. Through flashbacks we are taken on a narrative heavy journey through the events that led him to this point.
His first run in with alcohol happens after Frankie catches his Dad shagging the carpet of some floozie he knows from the bar. So he drinks. He later hears a fight between his Mum and Dad which results in his mother hitting the road and leaving the two of them. So he drinks. (You see where this is going?)
We then flash to Frankie as a guy in his twenties where he is the leader of a band of miscreants. We follow them as they perform random acts of violence and strange Marry Poppins like dance routines. I can only assume that is what Ska loving gangs do. Soon, after beating down a gang member for bad mouthing his family they turn on him, stab him and leave him to continue his life on his own.
We see the rest of Frankie’s journeys through the love affairs he has with two different women and how his past wrecks them both and drives him to drink and it led him to the situation he is currently in. You are left with a very open ended conclusion.
I come from what can only be described as a “Donna Reed” family. I have not experience with abusive parents, alcoholism, addiction or anything else that might drive one to seek the solace of a long couch once a week. Being a sometimes semi-smart guy, I can imagine what it must be like, but nothing really resonates with me from this film. I imagine someone who has gone through or knows somebody who has might have been able to take away something more from this movie than I did.
That left me with plenty of time to get sick up to my eyes with the constant similarities to A Clockwork Orange, obviously an inspiration to our director. For the record there is a difference between homage and just plain ripping another movie. The first half of the movie you can almost pick direct scene for scene correlations between the two movies.
One other thing that always bums me out about movies is when the director gives you scenes of conversation as a means to talk about what gets them all hot and sticky. Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith do use this tool a lot. Sometimes it works other times not so much. Director Richard Jobson, who wrote the script based on a book he penned in 87, does this with music. It doesn’t add anything to the movie, except maybe to make it 15 minutes longer so it isn’t considered a short film, but other than that it served no purpose. I didn’t give any real insight into the characters; it didn’t do anything to move the story along. In fact it slowed it down if anything.
There are a few nice moments, but the only thing I can sell you on in this movie is the performance of Kevin McKidd who plays Frankie. He has a low husky kind of voice that does keep your attention and that is a good thing, because his voice over was the one thing that was keeping me into the movie. Not that everybody else was bad, just forgettable.
16 Years of Alcohol is not a bad movie, far from it actually, but I cannot recommend it to you unless dark and depressing movies are your thing or because your personal life experiences have made this movie more appealing or it provides some type of catharsis for you.
There is nothing on the DVD as far as extras that will put any hitch in your giddy up. There is a commentary that I tired of after about 5 minutes. It is kind of hard to listen to a guy talk about a movie that just didn’t do much for you.
