Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 1, 2021

Here Are the Young Men is an admittedly audacious effort that could be seen as having appropriated certain elements from such wildly disparate properties as A Clockwork Orange, American Gods and Trainspotting, albeit with events set in a contemporary (meaning circa 2003) Dublin. The film begins with Matthew Connolly (Dean-Charles Chapman) offering a bit of supposedly metaphysical voiceover, detailing the end of his school life and his assumed brief summer of freedom before adulthood and all of its responsibilities loom, but the fact that he seems to be walking into a church for some kind of funeral service gives a slightly uneasy feeling to things. The story then segues back two months to detail the exploits of Matthew and his two best friends, Kearney (Finn Cole) and Rez (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Matthew has just "escaped" from an awkward exit interview with his school's imperious headmaster, Mr. Landerton (Ralph Ineson), and hooks up with his buddies at a church (again, but, hey, this is Dublin). While it's not explicitly detailed, the three seem to consume some form of hallucinogen under the guise of taking communion. Unsurprisingly, rampant bad behavior ensues, including the complete destruction of Mr. Landerton's car and other damage done to the school. Even Landerton's unexpected entrance into the mayhem doesn't really put the kibosh on anything, and the boys simply run from pursuing authorities.

There's a certain shorthand at play with regard to the screenplay by director Eoin Macken, adapting Rob Doyle's novel of the same name, but it's relatively clear that Matthew is the most gentle natured of his trio, with Kearney kind of off the charts with near sociopathic tendencies and Rez somewhere in the middle. The three also have a female friend named Jen (Anya Taylor-Joy), who, like many young women her age, seems decidedly more mature and well adjusted than any of her male counterparts. Unfortunately, Macken doesn't seem to be able to satisfactorily shape his narrative, which may be due in part to difficulties inherent to the source material (which I frankly have not read), and the result is a stylistic mishmash which goes off on a number of at times rather interesting detours, but which fails to ever gel and is therefore kind of amorphous and ultimately strangely ineffective, at least given all of the hyperbolic emotions and activities on display.

Part of what is disjunctive about this effort is how it tries to ply a pretty standard "coming of age" tale, albeit one liberally suffused with "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll", but at the same time has some decidedly more surreal elements. Some of these, like a maybe, maybe not imaginary American talk show that Kearney is a perhaps unwilling guest on, are weirdly amusing and may in fact bring to mind certain elements of media criticism that are rampant in American Gods, among other properties, perhaps most saliently Natural Born Killers, since it focuses on mass media responses to sociopathic behaviors. But other moments, like a bizarre slow motion reaction to a devastating car accident which kills a little girl, are just flat out peculiar, and seem to ask more questions than they answer. This particular sequence is baffling not just as to the facial expressions of two of the guys, which seem to almost border on laughter, but also due to Macken's choice to suddenly go into "video vérité" mode, as if we were watching a news report. Other moments supposedly showing broadcast material is more organically woven into the proceedings.

It's kind of interesting to contrast the surreality of this film with the "heightened reality" of Kubrick's film about youths running amok, because what only adds a visceral energy to the violence in A Clockwork Orange seems to work against some of the more disturbing aspects at play in Here Are the Young Men. This may be due to the fact that Kubrick managed to sustain a consistent tone throughout A Clockwork Orange, despite some obviously over the top elements, while Macken seems to ping pong between various approaches, something that ends up making Here Are the Young Men downright confounding at times. It might actually be a cast study for some film buffs, though, to contrast and compare how Kubrick made his nightmare vision work, and why Macken stumbles. Personally, I feel it may be due at least in part to the fact that, despite its rampant savagery and lunacy, Kubrick's film seems to be all of a stylistic whole, while Macken tries to combine what amounts to relative naturalism with something decidedly more stylized and even willfully unreal, leading to an almost dissociative quality.

Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Here Are the Young Men is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Kind of interestingly, the IMDb's "Technical Specs" hyperlink looked grayed out, but it actually does contain relevant datapoints, stating Arri Alexa Minis were utilized and the DI was finished at 4K. Detail levels are typically excellent throughout this presentation, despite a number of almost garishly lit and/or graded sequences that see swaths play out in a variety of rather deeply saturated hues, including reds, purples, oranges, and even some kind of slightly rosy pinks. A number of frankly odd stylistic choices have been exploited as well, including some basically abstract imagery (see screenshot 16), as well as moments that are supposed to be transmissions via closed circuit or broadcast television, where the imagery has been appropriately tweaked. I mentioned Well Go USA's "new, improved" logo that they started offering a few releases ago, one which was commendably free of the banding that was often visible in their old logo. For some reason, while the disc boots with this new logo, the actual film has the old style, which does show a few ripples as the lighting gradations change.

Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Here Are the Young Men features a nicely boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is bolstered by regular uses of propulsive source cues. Some of the music choices will probably strike some as too "on the nose", but they give the film an almost punk fueled ambience at times that at least adds to some of the savagery on display. A number of outdoor scenes also offer a nice spread of ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly for the most part, but some of these actors have wandering accents, and there's also a tendency for some of them to play their lines to the second balcony, so to speak. Optional English subtitles are available.

Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:45)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Here Are the Young Men Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Here Are the Young Men has made me at least curious enough to perhaps seek out the original source novel by Rob Doyle, if only to perhaps ferret out why a cinematic adaptation might have been challenging. There are some good performances here (along with a few that might have been hemmed in a bit by a more experienced director), and style in surplus, but rather strangely given all that goes on in the film, virtually no real emotional content. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.