Director: Kris McManus (2011)
Starring: Shane Sweeney, Tom Geoffrey, Alex Edwards
A family of innocent Irish Travellers are minding their own business when a gang of four holidaying city boys happen across their home, trash the place and daub racist graffiti all over the walls. Understandably miffed, the travellers give chase. Racism ensues.
Travellers is the most offensive movie I have ever seen. See, I myself grew up as a Traveller (taken by the movie to mean a family of Irish unfavourables who live in caravans, do bareknuckle boxing and are generally a bit dodgy). Until I was sixteen and we moved into a real house (without wheels or anything) I had dreadlocks and had never set foot inside a school. I grew up on campsites with 'pikeys', 'gyppos', 'didacoys' and what have you. I suppose this is how folks from Down South (USA, I mean, not Bournemouth) must feel about constantly being portrayed as arse-raping cannibal Hillbillies. I seem to recall comedian Rich Hall making a BBC4 documentary to that effect.
The movie's 'heroes' trash the Travellers' caravan, insult its inhabitants and cast numerous aspersions on their lifestyle (I believe not a little inbreeding is insinuated). Which, by the way, seems to consist of deleted scenes from Snatch, My Big Fat Gypsy Bollocks and Danny Dyer's Hardest Men. And the only one of the lads shown 'tough' enough to fight back is revealed to be half-traveller himself. Believe it or not, but growing up in a caravan does not automatically make you hard. I got beat up by a girl once. And not even a gypsy girl.
Eventually Travellers calms down with the racism and the action amps up a fair bit - there's some neat bareknuckle boxing scenes in the last half - becoming almost watchable in the process. There's an effort to make both parties more relateable. But it's hard to give a shit about any of the urban cunts, whilst the Travellers are too thinly drawn to care about either. Attempts to show the traveller lifestyle in a favourable light smell of condescension (then the sole sympathetic traveller girl admits to thinking her life kinda sucks). And even the few vaguely good bits of the movie are ruined by it originating from its main characters' unfathomable dipshittery. At one point they even decide it a good idea to throw away their only weapon. Say what you like about Travellers, but I've never had them paint badly-spelled insults over my house. If anything, my house looks better since I had the travellers visit. How many of you can say you had a city boy tarmac your drive?
Oh well, I suppose it's completely fine to insult Travellers, After all, not many of them own a TV and will therefore be unable to watch Travellers. Lucky them. This movie deserves little more than a big fat gypsy fuck you.
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