The Riot Club (2014)

[J.D.]

The Riot Club is a peak into the inner-most cloisters of the privileged class at Oxford. The club itself is a thinly disguised copy of the notorious Bullingdon Club which has been active at Oxford since the late 18th Century. Its raison d'etre is simply to dine and destroy. It has very few members - rarely more than a dozen - and is strictly by invitation only. To get in you have to be 1) fabulously wealthy, 2) well connected and 3) of a certain personality disposition.

The club decides on a night to dine out and dresses in a uniform dinner suit (the Bullingdon ones are reputed to cost £3,000) and simply arrives at an agreed location. Since most pubs and restaurants in Oxford are very well aware of their activities, they usually have to travel some distance, seeking out unsuspecting pubs and restaurants. The evening then consists of ritualistic destruction of property and the members handing over wads of cash to "compensate" for the damage. The idea being to remind the plebs who is boss.

Miles (Max Irons) and Alistair (Sam Claflin) arrive at Oxford and are soon noticed by Riot Club members who subsequently initiate them. The rest of the film revolves around the moral dilemma of doing what the club does best: debauchery. Beyond that I'm not going to spoil it.

I'm not surprised this film was made. With the the Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, all having been Bullingdon members, one has to question how far the upper echelons of Britain have come in 230 years (all three are descended from royalty). Paying off publicans for damage might have worked in the 18th Century but it simply isn't appropriate now. Cameron, Johnson and Osborne would rather all this went away.

With themes of loyalty to the class, taking one for the team and playing themselves as victims in an ongoing class war, The Riot Club examines both the tactics of the upper class and how it has managed to survive so long in a modern world.

Written and directed by two women, the film started life as a West End play called "Posh". The clubs traditional practices of degradation which are foisted on anyone other than members are portrayed in a less-than flattering light. As well they should be. Themes of bullying, entitlement and degradation of women are summed up in a speech when one of the boys incites everyone to trash the pub, claiming that as a member of the privileged class, he's sick of apologising for who he is and he's sick of poor people.

Some have been tempted to write this off as lefty rubbish but it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to see that few people, rich or poor, would have much sympathy for such people and their behaviour. Somehow they remain in control. You have to wonder what it would take to remove them.

The catch line "Filthy. Rich. Spoilt. Rotten." pretty much sums it up.

This is a good film.

8/10