Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Prismark10 There are a lot of white blues musicians heavily influenced by black blues legends and yet ironically display racists views. Cough, Eric Clapton for example although he claims he was drunk at the time.In the same vein, Wigan is one of the most racists town in Britain. I went there once with an Asian friend and it was eye popping the blatant racism on display and the people of Wigan seemed to be rather proud of this. Then again what do you expect when the town's rugby supporters would throw bananas on the pitch for one of their own highly paid black rugby players.This kind of prejudice is always conveniently overlooked when programme makers examine the history of the Wigan Casino. Still the Wigan Casino has attained legendary status as the dance mecca for 1960s American soul music, daring dance moves and later on giving a new lease of life to the soul legends of yesteryear.SoulBoy gives a slice of life in the 1970s when a young lad, Joe (Martin Compston) from Stoke discovers the joys of Soul music, dancing, Wigan Casino, getting girls and popping pills. He falls for a blonde but its a brunette who is his true soul mate. Along the way he crosses swords with a nasty ace dancer who is the boyfriend of the blonde one and Joe's fellow work mate has a thing for the wife from the local chip shop whose husband is the jealous and violent type.There are several cast members who have ended up later in the BBC TV series Line of Duty, so you have here a few familiar faces if you watch Line of Duty.SoulBoy is a low budget movie, filmed in Stoke. It has a slight storyline but there is a lot of heart in the acting. It does try to be a Staffordshire version of Saturday Night Fever although the final dance off does look a little weak.The film did miss a nice humorous twist where it should have had a present day scene when all the now aged dancers from the Wigan Casino days are lining up at the local hospitals waiting for their hip and knee replacement surgery!

l_rawjalaurence The basic scenario of SOULBOY is a familiar one: boy Joe (Martin Compston) meets unattainable girl (Nichola Burley) and follows her up to a club in Wigan that functions as the center of Northern Soul. There he learns how to dance, but while doing so he gradually discovers that plain lass Mandy (Felicity Jones) has fallen in love with him. After Mandy takes an overdose, Joe realizes his true feelings. Back in the club he has an energetic dance-off with smarmy Alan (Craig Parkinson), and emerges triumphant, thereafter to enjoy love with Mandy.The grimy, down-at-heel atmosphere of mid-Seventies Stoke-on-Trent is admirably evoked by director Shimmy Marcus, from the poky two-up, two-down houses to the local pub, where everyone pours pints down without ever seeming to enjoy themselves. Joe's mate Russ (Alfie Allen) has a grotesque dance that he calls the "dying fly," but he can only perform that when he is drunk. Sometimes Marcus overdoes the Seventies aura, such as having politician Enoch Powell speaking on one of the car radios; by 1974 he was virtually a spent force in politics, having resigned from the Conservative Party and joined the Ulster Unionists. Some of the cars seem a little antiquated too, dating from a decade earlier.Once the action shifts to the club, however, the mise-en-scene changes abruptly. Vladimir Trivic's camera admirably captures the phantasmagoria of color, light, bodily movements, sweat and unadulterated fun that characterized the late-night gigs at the club, whose patrons came from all over the country each Saturday night by coach to enjoy the fun. For those of us with longer memories, the set pieces have strong echoes of Saturday NIGHT FEVER (1977) with Joe in the John Travolta role, but that resemblance does not detract from the exuberant staging, in which music and dance combine to create a series of stirring sequences. The final dance-off between Joe and Alan is something to behold: director Marcus uses slow-motion and frequent close-ups to make us aware of the sheer effort involved by the protagonists.The film ends with a series of of short interviews from people - now very much middle-aged - that frequented the club when it was in its heyday during the mid-Seventies. Their reminiscences capture the atmosphere of excitement and daring that was characteristic of the club; no wonder it was named "best disco in the world" later on in the decade, despite its assuming location in a Lancashire industrial town.

chris-166-654495 Once again we are presented with many different versions of the helpless, bumbling, western male until the lead male 'does a little dance' in order to impress a member of the opposite sex in the hope of some kind of redemption and therefore place in society and reason to exist. The film struggles to find a consistent tone, verging from someone getting a horrible beating in the toilets of the casino to the male lead's inane grinning throughout the film. Further variations in tone range from someone receiving oral sex in a car to real life memories of the northern soul scene shown over the credits. The music takes a back seat to clique-ridden window dressing.

pomeroy-nick Northern Soul is back, it's being pumped into bars and clubs with rising regularity. Understandably with every resurrected craze, it had been converted into a film last year. The story is bland at best, with a predictable and formulaic path. The saving grace is a good performance by Martin Compston and the great soundtrack.Soulboy is branded as a comedy drama, the comedy it speaks of is provided by various cheap jokes throughout, nothing showing real wit or craftsmanship. Cringe worthy dialogue and scenes abound with fairly wooden character acting providing the backdrop for see through storytelling.Joe, as the likely lad, gets mixed up in drugs and the plot takes a dark turn. As it's a light hearted drama, no real harm comes of the actions. I don't want to bash the director and producers of the film as it is brilliantly shot, the dance scenes are a real treat to watch (except for the painful dance off) and everything is set up perfectly for the 70's from the platforms to the flares and the god awful red tank top. Regarding the dance off, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in Wigan in the 70's it would've been a fight not a dance. The film didn't need that scene but obviously someone had the bright idea of a big Hollywood style ending. This isn't what the audience wanted from a Northern Soul tribute.Despite all of the problems with this film, it is enjoyable, mainly because of the music, some of which I've now added to my collection. If you enjoy Northern Soul then this film will get you yearning for the Casino Club, if you don't then there isn't a great deal else to draw you in as the script and predictability make it a no brainer of a watch. Without the music, this is a poor man's An Education.