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I had the opportunity of seeing this film at the London Film Festival and as I grew up in the 1970s, it seemed like an interesting premise.<br /><br />Sadly, 'Whatever Happened to Harold Smith' is another in a long line of British cinema disasters and is destined to be lambasted by the critics and ignored by the public.<br /><br />The makers of this film are so lazy that they feel that stringing together a bunch of cultural references around a shallow and uninteresting story and adding a big soundtrack is enough for a surefire success. Well, despite the ridiculously sycophantic applause of Saturday night's audience, the release in February or March will illustrate that this is simply not good enough.<br /><br />The performances are passable although Stephen Fry does little more than play himself and the lead actor is so inconsequential that I can barely remember his performance.<br /><br />However, it is the cultural references that really grate - these include a car painted like Starsky and Hutch's, not one but two examples of Hai Karate adverts, a ridiculous take off of the opening of Saturday Night Fever and a variety of newsreaders from the period clearly appearing 20 years too old. It's remarkable that they didn't manage to squeeze spangles in somewhere.<br /><br />However, the single worst thing about this film is the way that it portrays punks as criminals or deadbeats. Having been a disaffected youth into this music myself, I don't recognise these characters at all and this moral line on a little rebellion leaves a very nasty taste indeed. |