Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Freebird (2008)

Director: Jon Ivay

Time Out rating

Average user rating

4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

It’s become something of a common trait in comedy cinema – especially the bad stuff – to tack a blooper reel over the closing credits. There is no blooper reel at the end ‘Freebird’, perhaps because it’s difficult to detect whether any unusable footage wasn’t eventually jimmied into the final cut. It certainly feels that way.

This British indie biker movie-cum-jumped-up jolly boy’s tour sees three middle-aged roustabouts (Gary Stretch, Geoff Bell and Phil Daniels) head off into the Welsh countryside to score some weed for their boss, Michael Bowles. But things take a turn for the affectedly wacky as they accidentally crash a hillside biker gang war (sic), and so we are treated to an interminable barrage of miscellaneous pratfalls, our only partition from which is a surreal, 20-minute mushroom bender sequence which succeeds in being one of the most juvenile, ill-advised and deathly dull scenes in recent memory.

Considering Daniels has spent the entire first half of the film spouting such obsolete drug lingo like ‘pass the bong, man’ and ‘roll me up a fat one’, we should really have seen it coming.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 1954: Jan 30 to Feb 5

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

Kelvin H said...

Posted on Jan 27 2010 12:21 Well said Steve J and Ben. This is a quality film. Full of laughs and more than you'd usually get from such a low budget film. I've bought it on DVD and watch it time and time again. Well worth a look.

Report as inappropriate
Lazarus said...

Posted on Aug 08 2009 23:59 Absolutely terrible. I can't think of a more inappropriate biker movie. No wonder major cinema houses rejected this piece of s**t. As a group of motorcycle riders we can't steer far enough away from it.

Report as inappropriate
Steve J said...

Posted on Nov 25 2008 21:02 It had its faults, the acting was a bit wooden to begin with, but the characters grew as the film progressed. There were some funny moments and overall, a good first film from the director/script writer. Shame the reviewer, David Jenkins, didn't check his facts before publishing his learned tome! It is Peter Bowles, not Michael Bowles, as The Chairman, perhaps he should actually pay more attention to the films he reviews?? A good film, harmless, funny and just the right amount of bad language.

Report as inappropriate
Ben Davis said...

Posted on Mar 16 2008 17:54 i disagree, i thought it was really good.

Report as inappropriate