Human Traffic Reviews

"So many ideas, so little memory," says Jip (John Simm), the happily medicated hero of this energetic party flick, as he tries to describe the manic frame of mind that comes with the right combination of certain drugs. He might as well be talking about the film itself: Brimming with fun and a few great ideas, it's little more than a foggy memory the minute it's over. Jip works all week long at a brain-melting McJob, but like his four best friends &#151 LuLu (Lorraine Pilkington), Koop (Shaun Parkes), Nina (Nicola Reynolds) and Moff (Danny Dyer) — Jip lives for the weekend. "Forty-eight hours off from the world," when nothing matters but "clubs, drugs, pubs and parties." Directly addressing the camera, Jip invites the rest of us to join the gang for an all-nighter that includes pubbing, clubbing and losing it completely at a wild, after-hours house party. Through a euphoric haze, the kids try to deal with their problems — Jip may be impotent, LuLu has no luck with men, Koop is insanely jealous of girlfriend Nina — but everything works out fine before breakfast. There's a lot of great chemistry here, and not all of it is in Jip's bloodstream: The young cast members are great together, and their fun is infectious. Written and directed by 25-year-old Justin Kerrigan, the film owes more than a little to the surreal, post-modern visual style of TRAINSPOTTING. But Kerrigan dispenses with all the finger-wagging and angst; drugs here aren't so much a way of life as something to do, and they're blithely consumed without a hint of moralizing or consequence, aside from a little post-party paranoia. And it's this attitude that probably makes it a far more dangerous film than TRAINSPOTTING for "impressionable youth" &#151 a concept Kerrigan cheerfully mocks with a nod and a wink.