Twin Town

Swansea, South Wales – renowned local boy Dylan Thomas dubbed it “the graveyard of ambition� and the two Lewis brothers Julian and Jeremy (“real life� siblings Rhys and Llyr Ifans) certainly live down to that credo. Pissing away their lives in a flurry of dole cheques, stolen cars and drugs of any kind they can get their grubby maulers upon (even model glue will do), at least they have one demonstrable talent - an absolutely uncanny ability to turn most anything you could name into some form of bong.

They may be no-hopers, but they do have a strong, if not always demonstratively loving, familial bond with the rest of their somewhat dysfunctional kin – their borderline hooker sister Adie (Rachel Scorgie), long-suffering mother and odd jobs man father - ‘Fatty’ (Huw Ceredig). It’s when the latter suffers injuries after falling off a ladder whilst working for local big shot Bryn Cartwright (William Thomas) that this bond is shown, as after being refused monetary compensation for their father’s misfortune, the “twins� (as they’re known) resort to a spot of rather “creative� (read ‘gruesome’) revenge. Little do they realise what a hornet’s nest they have had a decent old poke at with a very big stick, however, as Cartwright then enlists two local, and decidedly crooked, cops (Dougray Scott and Dorien Thomas) to help even the score, in a battle that escalates way beyond that which any of them could have predicted.

"F*CK!!!"

For a film that scarcely has one redeemable character – and certainly none that any sane audience member could empathise with - Twin Town somehow manages to exude a certain engrossing brashness that definitely leaves proceedings in the never-a-dull-moment category. It even manages to come up with a remarkably touching ending, although it too has its perverse twists. Suffering from being dubbed as some sort of Welsh Trainspotting by more unimaginative critics, not least of all due to the involvement of executive producers Danny Boyle and Andrew McDonald, it does fit vaguely into the same category, but sometimes successfully and sometimes not injects more humour into proceedings than the bleaker than bleak Scottish flick. Running the gamut from dark to hilarious with lots of outrageous in-between, when spared comparisons with other films Twin Town has quite a bit to offer as a disturbingly enjoyable and undoubtedly spirited film.

Letterboxed at 1.78:1 and anamorphically enhanced, Twin Town comes to DVD with an unremarkable, but decent enough nonetheless, transfer. The drab Welshness of everything is always quite clear and as colourful as should be expected – with accurately pale skin tones throughout - although on a couple of occasions reds almost jump out of the screen and make a banshee-like grab for your retinas. Good detail is on hand most always, blacks are solid enough and whilst the shadow detail isn’t as impressive as would be liked, it doesn’t leave you peering at a screen full of muddied blobs either. This is all crammed onto a single layer disc, so you know the rest...

Whilst there’s only a surround encoded Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack on offer here, there’s still some fun surround use to be had – in fact it starts right from the opening seconds when a BMW (we won’t argue about model numbers here) zooms overhead from the back of the room. If you redirect things through a Prologic decoder you’ll get a little subwoofwoof action, however in its native sound mode things are still pleasingly spread out. All is well-synched, and is as clear as the often incredibly strong Welsh accents allow – as such some may have problems making out what is being said at times if they’re not used to such thick brogues.

The quite frenetic, modern score work is credited to Mark Thomas, and littered amongst this is a quite wonderful selection of soundtrack CD-stuffers ranging from ‘60s goddess Petula Clark to ‘60s not-a-goddess Mungo In the Summertime Jerry, dance mobs Moloko and DJ Shadow, and the bona fide brilliance of Welsh ‘indie’ types Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals and Catatonia.

F*ck! Some f*cker done f*cked off with all the f*cking extras! F*cking twats, there isn’t a f*cking sausage - or even a hotdog for that matter.

Often incredibly black and always knee deep in more f-words than a freighter full of dictionaries, Twin Town’s video is OK and the sound is pretty good, although the extras situation is quite frankly, well, f*cked. Still, it’s all available at a budget price, and if you’re in the right sort of mood this is more fun than trying to say “Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-gogerychwyrndrobwy-llllantisiliogogogch� when you’re pissed. Or, in fact, even when you’re not...