Movie Review: The Riot Club

The Riot Club (2014) by Lone Scherfig. With Sam Claflin, Max Irons, Douglas Booth, Holliday Grainger and Sam Reid


A couple of weeks ago I went to see "The Riot Club", where you can admire not only Max Irons but also loved actors like Sam Caflin (we'll see him soon on screen thank to his new movies Love, Rosie and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), Jessica Brown Findlay (late and missed Lady Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey) and Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones)

I leave my comments on the movie to the end as always BUT there's one thing I really have to say: why on  Earth italian translators feel the need to change movie titles EVERY.SINGLE.TIME with new ones that frankly arent appealing AT ALL? This movie's title has been changed with "Posh" here in Italy...ok, those guys are posh, but the original title was more meaningful!


Anyway, here's the synopsis (SPOILER ALERT):

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Back in 1700, in Oxford University there was a student, as brilliant as dissolute, named Lord Riot . After been killed by a cheated husband, 10 of his closest friends decide to honor his memory founding a secret and elite club, the Riot Club.


All the members have to be worthy, meaning that they've to be rich, top students and with a respectable background.
Nowadays, the club is in need of two more members. 

In the end, Alistair Ryle and Miles Richards are selected. The first is an arrogant, spoiled and angry  rich young man while the other one, even if rich, is a modest and "easy to get along with" kind of guy. 

They need to pass some sort of tests, which include pouring on themselves a bottle of fine wine or drink and answer to history questions in the same time. 

After they pass the initiations, the club rent a room in a pub outside London for the formalization of the two new members. Here, thanks to the high alcolemic tax, the arrogance of the money and the cruelty of some of the members, the night ends with a fistfight between the pub's owner and 2 or 3 of the guys, with the others that don't intervene because too drunk and astonished.

The pub's owner is reduced pretty bad, with broken ribs and some brain damages....Miles stops the fight and calls an ambulance, which arrives with the police and the 10 guys end up in jail for the night.
When they get released, they start arguing, saying that one member has to sacrifice himself and form to the police for the sake of the club. Of course, none of them wants to and rancor and selfishness make them blaming one another, pointing fingers on who should go in prison....



I liked the movie, the scenography is outstanding! The actors are very good and let's face it, England and really old Universities have their "je ne sais quoi" that enchants me everytime!
The plot is unfortunately too realistic, with an elitè of young men who think they can afford any excess and actions without paying consequences.

Ranking : 4/5


photo credits: all over the Internet