Product Details

• Actors: The Clash
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Legacy/Columbia
• DVD Release Date: August 1, 2006
• Run Time: 133 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FUTUYM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,267 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Clash: Rude Boy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For their first film, the Clash could've easily cast themselves in the lead. The fiery foursome, however, were nothing if not unpredictable. Just as the little known Phil Daniels was the star of Quadrophenia--rather than the Who--the completely unknown Ray Gange is the star of the more vérité-like Rude Boy. The year is 1978 and England has gone to the dogs, with the National Front on the rise and rioting in the streets. Ray, as he's also known in the film, is a bleary-eyed punk, who works in a hole-in-the-wall Brixton sex shop. The 20-year-old blows off steam by going to see the Clash. Sometimes he hangs out with them. Eventually, Ray becomes their roadie, but the band fails to convince him that the left-wing has any more to offer than the right. "I don't think you should mix your music with politics," he finally tells Joe Strummer. "It annoys me." In this re-mastered and expanded edition, the quartet performs "I Fought the Law," "White Riot" with Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey, and 15 other songs, both live and in rehearsal. As for Gange, he isn't a great actor, but he's an engaging presence, and Rude Boy plays like a rambling cross between Alan Clarke (Made in Britain) and early Mike Leigh (Meantime). It may be fiction, but feels like fact, and the abundance of early material from the Clash makes up for any shortcomings. Extras include interviews (Gange, road manager Johnny Green, and co-directors Jack Hazan and David Mingay), four deleted scenes, two bonus live tracks, and two rare BBC performances. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great film, June 24, 2003

By 

S. Weinraub (Yorba Linda, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rude Boy [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you're a longtime Clash fan, this video will make you salivate. It has all of the ringing tones of the Clash's lyrical content in the plot, as well as numerous live performances and casual footage. For instance, it shows the late, great, Joe Strummer curled up into an inhuman ball on the stage, moaning to the audience, yelling at and dispersing bouncers during "Janie Jones," and playing the piano while chatting with the main character, Ray. It shows Paul Simonon relaxing and enjoying some reggae music, and being collected after his arrest for shooting pigeons. It shows Topper Headon hitting and kicking a punching bag while dressed in a yellow excersize suit. And it shows Mick Jones singing into the microphone, snapping at our slightly bigoted main charcater, and showing up late to rehearsals. All this comes on top of the life and times of Clash fan/roadie/sex shop employee Ray Gange, and the plight of two young black men in the chaotic year of 1978 in Britain. I'd say that for all of this, this film is definitely worth watching, if not owning.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wish there was more concert footage, March 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rude Boy [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a rather interesting piece. It does follow a fictional alcoholic young man who quits his lame job as a clerk for a shop that sells pornography to equally sad customers, and joins the Clash as an apprentice roadie. Intermixed with the fiction is excellent concert footage of the Clash before they made it big in the States, just not enough of it. Also, it provides an accurate snapshot of pre-Thatcher Britain. The Brixton race riots contrasted with that of neo-nazi demostrations, provides a background to Ray Gange's narrative as the man with no future. His only solace in the Stalinist Tower Block Flats is playing the Clash's first album on his very cheap turntable. Even the rather stark sex scene in the women's bathroom in some club doesn't provide relief, since she runs off while he is cashing in his unemployment check at some streetside bank.

The minuses: The story and the acting is pretty lame at times.

The plusses: Excellent concert footage, what there is of it, gives a great idea of the Clash's performance at the time. Police and Thieves performed live here is, I believe, superior to the album cut. Plus, the producers of the movie included a clip of the original song, which I wished was complete, being a reggae fan. Another plus is the 100% accuracy of what England, especially London, was like during that time. It was a wasteland in the city, a concrete jungle. It is not much surprise, with hindsight, that the Clash and the Sex Pistols became so popular back then. Unfortunately, it seemed to have brought about Thatcher's election, also documented in the movie, which frankly doesn't make much sense to me, but I will leave politics out of this. Let's just say it made things worse for much of the very people the Clash appealed to.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Only I Could Have Been There..., April 10, 2001

By 

Clark Paull "(Sleepin' with the TV on)" (Murder City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rude Boy [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I've had this sort of strange fascination with "Rude Boy" ever since first seeing it on a double bill with "The Kids Are Alright" at the Punch & Judy Theater in Grosse Pointe, MI in 1981. It's not just the live footage of one of the greatest bands ever to plug into an amplifier, although said footage is probably some of the greatest filmed of any band ever, albeit brief. It's almost as if you can smell the stale beer and splif smoke in many of the scenes, which follow the exploits and misadventures of Clash-fan-turned-roadie Ray Gange. Shot in and around a constantly grey and dismal London, it must have been a heady time nonetheless to have been present at what many of us then viewed as a revolution. This is pre-American breakout era Clash and includes studio footage of them recording "Give 'Em Enough Rope" and a priceless scene involving Joe Strummer tickling the ivories and croaking "Let The Good Times Roll." One of the crown jewels in any Clash collection, "Rude Boy" captures a period of musical innocence and hope we'll never see again in this age of Britney Spears, boy bands, shiny shirts, and goatees. Come back Mick Jones, all is forgiven!