User Reviews

Straight off the bat 'Travellers' is a cheap looking and sounding affair. If that isn't your bag then save your time watching. If you can't see this was shot on digital video from the off then you probably need glasses. Should that ruin your enjoyment? No... But the weaker parts of the script, inconsistent acting from some of the players and occasional plot hole may.

However, stick with it. If these guys made this with nothing they certainly end it with something, something good.

The second half of this movie had me glued to the seat. I'd got used to the shaky cam style and low quality audio and by the time the fight sequence kicks off (one of the best fight sequences I've seen in UK film for a long time) this film makes some impact.

The fight itself is expertly handled, no silly Guy Ritchie over stylisation or edits so tight that lose the geography of the scene. This was straight, smacks to the face. The authenticity of the fight seemed spot on, and very real, to a point where I questioned if moments weren't?

The Travellers are handled stereotypically at first but to good effect, as horror villains then their characters slowly pulled back, showing a much more complex sense of honour and brotherhood within their group. You will route for them before the end. This is guaranteed by the behaviour of city- boy nut case Andy Baxtor, played well by Tom Geoffrey.

The lead, former gypsy turned city-boy Chris (Shane Sweeney) is a likable character despite his buried desire to hit people, and is also performed well and subtly despite the scripts sledge-hammer approach to story telling.

It's the the brother and sister act of Traveller Martin (Dean Jagger) and his sister Lucy (Celia Muir) who steal the show. Considering the mixed bag of talent on screen its a small blessing they had these actors holding it together. The screen presence of Jagger is captivating.

Director Kris McManus holds it all together and really gains control of his movie during act 3.

I expect this lot are new to film-making, and it shows at times, but I hope they continue to do what there doing. just maybe spend a little more time and a lot more money!

I'd give this a better rating if the production value had been just a little higher. Worth a watch.

*****

Sorry, but this film is awful. I really did want to like it. After all, its British, has motorbikes in it and even Charley Boorman - with so much going for it, its a real pity that it was so dire....

I gave it one point for Charley, one for the bikes and two for the surprise bit in the story -no, I didn't see it coming, so it does rate a couple of points for that.

But overall the plot was non-existent, the acting was dreadful and neither Charley nor the bikes were in it after the first five minutes anyway. (Actually, I wonder why Charley Boorman was in it - what on earth was he thinking about? Maybe they should have hired him as one of the bikers?)

The fighting scene was OK but not really my cup of tea.

All things considered, I must say I agree with 'Silly Sausage' on this one.

Four friends decide to hop on their bikes and go travelling. They decide to camp in a field. Andy spots a caravan and starts kicking at it. He also breaks the back window and reaches in to get a can of spray paint. He spray paints the words Pity Scum on the caravan. He then looks in the back window and sees what seems to be a dead body. Turns out not being a dead body but a female who is asleep. She must of been wearing ear plugs (too funny). She never heard the kicks or the sound of breaking glass.

And it all goes downhill from there. The good guys are chased by the bad guys. Then one of the good guys becomes a bad guy. And some of the bad guys become friends with the good guys and so forth.

I got bored very quickly with this movie. Please do not waste your time watching this movie.

Travellers has just entered into the list of the top 10 worst films so far ever viewed. 1. The scenario makes no sense. 2. When it rains no one gets wet, not even the ground. 3. The 'psycho city boy' is unbelievable. 4. The romance between Dan and the gypsy chick is tainted with puerile vacuous nonsense. 6. How can anyone box for that long....? 7. This film does'nt deserve 10 lines of critic. 8. They don't know how to make the blood look realistic...9. The sound was no good. 10. I wonder if real gypsies were consulted into the making of this film... Let's not waste anymore time about this failure. On par with 'Adrift'...

Well done with the low budget they had though.

I am not really sure what this film sets out to achieve here. Within the genre this story has been told a million times and a million times it has been told better than here. The plot is all over the place and the main protagonists are hard to watch, maybe it's the poor script or the risible way in which it is delivered...or maybe it's just because I am not a 12 year old. The only surprising thing about this movie is that those stalwarts of useless films do not appear in it, neither Danny Dire (sic) nor Vinnie Jones crop up anywhere, but you half expect them to at any moment with some rather large doses of scene chewing that they excel at. The film is neither gritty nor entertaining and offers little, I defy anyone to sit and watch this tripe and honestly say they have not...as I have just done...wasted a chunk of an evening. Utter PAP.

I really wanted this to be great. Loved the idea when I heard about it, setting up the Travellers as the villains (as expected) and then telling a different story. If only it had been told better. There are still some great bits. The Traveller characters presence is powerful with Dean Jagger and Celia Muir both strong in their roles. The fight scene almost feels real and there are some genuine thrills and spills. Disappointing was the production value - sure, not everyone has the big Hollywood bucks but I wish just a little more had been spent on this film. The script wavers and so do some of the performances, a lot of friends doing favours in this as opposed to 'actors' I suspect. I think some of the films messages about who is real bad-guy, and prejudices toward others are at times overstated and at others maybe understated, its a scrappy story. but the message is there. The film plays off its stereotypes for the most part quiet well with the most stereotypical character being the psycho 'hoodie' city-boy, nutcase Andy Baxtor who you just love to hate! The low HMV price tag on this is welcome but also denotes a certain instant lack of money spent on the film. These guys were almost certainly film students and it shows but worth a gander if you like a bit of splat and tw*t action. Please someone make an Irish Traveller Boxing flick with some money behind it!

I don't understand the bad reviews on this film maybe the wrong crowd are watching this, if your looking for a Hollywood style "fighter" big budget & big stars this is not for you, This film is a great movie for any British Indie film fan. Myself rate this film high along with Rise of the foot soldier, Dead Mans Shoes, This is England, Eden Lake, Bronson. If you like those films you will love this. The characters are great, The fight scenes and effects are pretty immense and realistic compared to the usual Hollywood style scenes (yawn). Yes its a low budget film welcome to "indie". I hope more people will watch this film and see how original and very British this film is. If you love British cinema go and see this it never gets boring, and your always wondering what is going to happen next. The climax doesn't let you down either. I say more like this & less of Hollywood trash please!

having enquired how much this film cost to make, I am amazed it got onto the screen at all.If Kris McManus can make a film like this on his budget, what does the future hold?? Yep, it was a bit wobbly at the start, but the cameo appearance of Charlie Boorman can't have hurt, a gesture for which I admire him, there can't have been much money in it for him! Some of the scenes were so absorbing that you completely forgot what the quality lacked. Violent, yes, but not gratuitously so. I found the screenplay excellent, and rather more convincing than some of the high budget, convoluted stuff you can see. I thought the atmosphere of the film was brilliantly achieved. The threatening seediness of the bare knuckle boxing scene had me on the edge of my seat. The hairs stood up on my neck when the "Pikeys" appeared to do justice to the bikers who had defaced their caravan. Slow start perhaps, but it amply repays perseverance. The camera quality wasn't that great, but the cameraman had enough skill to compensate to a large degree.To my great surprise, I was really impressed.

Four men from the city decided to do the "Easy Rider" thing and travel the countryside. They spend the night camping in a field. When they awake they find a trailer nearby, the abode of some travelers (Irish gypsies). Baxtor, a young brash military veteran with prejudices, graffiti the trailer with "Pikey Scum." Pikey is a slang word taken from "turnpike" used for travelers. The owners return and confront the four men in a very hostile manner. One biker is tied up. Two escape and are hunted. The fourth didn't fare so well.

The film becomes overly violent at this point as Baxtor is driven by his desire for revenge, as so are the travelers.

The film was well acted, decently scripted and feigns a message. There is violence, blood, and killing which is why it got its "18" rating. The film was low budget and suffered technically from quality camera and editing.

F-bombs, no sex, brief nudity? (Celia Muir)

Travellers is an exploitation film in its most fundamental form. It uses its subject matter of gypsies as a launchpad and jumps into several different movies such as Deliverance, Easy Rider and Rambo whilst following the great British cinematic tradition of making everything look as ugly and colourless as naturally possible.

Shot in HD and barely colour graded, if at all, Travellers looks dirt cheap, however it is never too dark and i could always see the action clearly. It's just not all that appealing to look at. Might work for a social realist picture, but let's get real ourselves and acknowledge that this film is far from concerned in portraying things as they really are.

The focus is more on who the real savages are and portrays the travellers as the ones who really have life figured out. This approach can either be laughable or enduring, depending on who you are, but this film definitely glosses over the more unsavoury and downright criminal elements of traveller life. I do understand that it's a message film, but the execution is poor and comes off as chintzy.

So Travellers, of course, is not social realism, but it is a solid genre picture. The picture quality might not be much, but the framing is inventive and the locations are suitably dense in foliage, giving it an authentically isolate atmosphere. And that's the best thing I can say about Travellers, that it has a great atmosphere to it.

So in conclusion, Travellers is a solid British genre picture that I can easily recommend to anyone interested in either UK crime, backwoods horror or biker films.