Ripley Don't Surf: BFTW 7/18/25

Last month, I saw Ken K, the record store guru of my young adulthood, for the first time in over 20 years. It felt like not a day had passed since we last gabbed, and I'm glad he was flattered by how many asides he’d made, pontificating from behind the counter, that he’d forgotten and I’d taken to heart. He’s the guy who’d crack a Vanilla Fudge joke about Afghan Whigs, forcing me to become someone who could acknowledge the truth in the zing and like the Whigs anyway. I wish I’d seen Rude Boy before our get-together, as the only sequence I’d seen beforehand was courtesy of his VHS player: Mick Jones sighing and pulling out a cigarette after recording the vocal to “Stay Free,” which Ken considered one of the coolest cinematic moments ever. While it’s indeed a remarkable grace note, capturing the awkward mix of fatigue and catharsis that comes from expressing love and concern in an honest, vulnerable way, I’m now eager to sit with old friends and discuss everything before and after it.

Directed by arts documentarians Jack Hazan & David Mingay, Rude Boy features lots of footage of The Clash performing before and after the recording of their second album, 1978’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope. Surrounding these sequences are mostly improvised interactions between the band and Ray Gange, playing a hapless hanger-on named Ray, who aspires to roadie-hood. Unlike Richard Lester’s films with The Beatles or even John Boorman’s strikingly dour Dave Clark Five movie Catch Us If You Can, the film doesn’t portray the young leads as romantic heroes. The band and management quickly realize Ray, shiftless and awkward, needs them more than they need him, with Ray defensively responding by helping less, drinking more, and goading the band about their left-wing leanings. Immediately after those seconds of solitude following “Stay Free,” Ray corners Jones insensitively, acknowledging what a brave, emotionally affecting song it is, but suggesting that’s not something he really wants from The Clash. 

While the Clash and Ray engage in this passive-aggressive battle, Ray’s race-baiting and the band’s increasing reliance on staff is contextualized by footage of protests for and against the National Front, as well as the violence and police harassment experienced by the band & their fans. In an enlightening interview with The Quietus, Gange (now a fine artist) insists he wasn’t political so much as a young drunk talking shit to entertain the camera during these sequences, but the filmmakers use the material to suggest how the ignorant and isolated can be easily swept up in causes that exploit their prejudices, especially when those who try to educate you are destined for bigger and better things. Strummer believes hoarding power is fool’s game, but he's got audiences in the palm of his hand, dropping to his knees testifying before them. Ray would rather be a fool with power, and thinks the Clash sounds silly shouting about Jah. 

Late into the leisurely-paced film is a plot about a black teenager arrested on trumped-up charges relating to pickpocketing. I believe the intention was to contrast Ray’s anomie, and the indifference he experiences, with the outright cruelty and institutional contempt experienced by black youth. It’s not entirely clear, though, and the sudden, nearly arbitrary nature of the film’s end doesn’t help. The Clash claimed these sequences were stereotypical and gratuitous, using it as Exhibit A for why they didn’t support the film’s release (I’m guessing it was punk politics that gave the filmmakers’ control of the final product in the first place). 

According to Gange, Mingay believed the French market understood the movie best because both the dialogue and the lyrics were displayed on screen. My experience of the film also benefited from closed captioning. Not only are the majority of people on-screen shy young British men slurring with cigarettes in their mouths, but the lyrics connect to the themes of the film. Rude Boy shares Strummer’s “white man be this, black man be that” earnestness, which can’t help but feel retrograde in these intersectional times. The choice to stage a plot unrelated to the central pseudo-doc is easy to critique, and arguably undermines the blurring of documentary and fiction. Still, Rude Boy is still a strikingly audacious attempt to admire a band’s mission while acknowledging its limits on an interpersonal and cultural level. 

I sometimes forget just how dense and literate the lyrics of the Clash were, especially for a band that prioritized energy then and stylistic breadth later. While I’ve always loved the debut and early singles, I’ve only recently become a convert to the mixtape-like largesse of Sandinista!, and I’m still on the fence about London Calling as a whole. But Rude Boy (again, with the captions on) helped remind me why The Clash are an easy band to love: charming, reflective guys with opinions and energy to spare, eager to broaden their knowledge. They were willing to get lost in the staggering swirl of great sounds the world offers, eventually unable to handle the (huh huh) clash between their human egos and ambitious aesthetic. They even got humbled in their own movie. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

And now…two popcorn classics about death on the beach!

Despite loving Andrew Scott in Sherlock and Fleabag (which I just finished! Maybe more on that next week), I don’t think I’ll ever watch that Ripley miniseries on Netflix. First-off, the black & white cinematography just seems like a corny affect from this distance. Second, Scott is way too old to pull off what Matt Damon did with the same story in The Talented Mr. Ripley, playing Patricia Highsmith's titular con-man encountering a once-in-a-lifetime chance to live an epic lie. I love the contrast between the young cast and the grand, sweeping Italian locales, because the movie is about the glamour of those who feel entitled to the world, and those who can only aspire to that ease.

It’s funny that Good Will Hunting was about a troubled young man letting go of the chip on his shoulder, when many of Damon’s best roles have been about guys who either can’t admit the chip exists (The Informant!) or will literally die if they try (The Departed). Talented was arguably the first Damon vehicle to milk the joy of watching him double-down on a secret, with Jude Law and Philip Seymour Hoffman perfect as cads to the manor born, their joviality tested by Ripley’s thirst. Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett have less to do as a respective drip and a try-hard, but that’s ok. Ripley’s not in this for the girls. 

Club Dread is also about a murderous man sneaking around beautiful beachfront property, but instead of 1950’s Italy in all its old world splendor, the Broken Lizard film is set off the coast of ’00s Costa Rica. Specifically on a small resort named Pleasure Island, run by Coconut Pete, an aging wasteoid who swears Jimmy Buffett stole his shtick (“Pina Coladasburg…a little song I wrote seven and a half years before ‘Margaritaville’ was even on the map!…I hate that fuckin’ guy…son of a son of a bitch!”).

I’ve never seen another Broken Lizard film, partly because it’s their only slasher parody, a genre perfect for jokes about extremely dumb, horny guys and the women who inexplicably love them. It’s also because this is their only film with Bill Paxton, having the time of his life as the aforementioned Coconut Pete. As ridiculous as Jay Chandrasekhar’s Putman (haughty accent, giant dreads) and Steve Lemme’s Juan (the reason I pronounce Penelope “PEEN-a-lope”) are, it’s Paxton’s cranky, half-clueless CEO in an open shirt and a lei that rises Club Dread above its station. I can’t believe they haven’t rebooted it yet.

Yes, I know I should see Super Troopers. If there's anything else I should see, feel free to inform me at anthonyisright at gmail dot com.