Carnaby Feature Films PLC - ?

rockitup

You have been hard at work Mr Ickle cutting & pasting all those film reviews for Carnaby.............

Still don't think that many people who come across this forum thread are going to throw away any money by investing into this outfit's films

adam_ickle

TRUE GREAT British MOVIE, 11 September 2007

Author: Tony Day from United Kingdom
Went to see this Monday, and I thought what a great British true crime story. The director made this film as true to live as possible, and he did a great job of doing this, it's a fantastic true story that most Essex and London people know about. The film in my view shows you how the Essex boys lived there lives in Basildon, and how Carlton leach was part of there life's as well. It's true underworld film, will plenty of action. When I see this I hadn't been to sleep for hours and went straight from work to see it praying I won't fall a sleep, it kept me awake the whole time, its action all the way.

The actors all played the parts well, ricci harnett who plays Carlton played a great role, as too do terry stone (Tony tucker) and Craig fairbrass as (pat Tate) Roland manookian (Craig rolfe) all played these guys like the real Essex boys were.

If you're a true crime fan, and love a British film, then go see this film, don't listen to what the press say, make your own mind up, and remember this is all true.

Its no big Hollywood film, it's a British movie, and we don't see many of them.

I will be going to see this movie again.

Well done again to director and writer Julian and will gilbey

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28 out of 41 people found the following review useful:
Reality vs Movies Making, 5 December 2007

Author: smwoyak8 from United States
I thought this was a great movie. I don't get all the bad comments. In truth this movie was based on real events, that's what makes it so great. They're trying to get across the grit and situations of the characters, attempting to make them more real rather than a stylized ideal of what they're supposed to be. If you can't appreciate the realism and would rather see mass produced soulless productions go see something else. For me it did the trick and is representative of the genre, i.e. movies based on real events. Take Ghost in the Darkness, it had a star, Val Kilmer, and a substantial budget yet failed to be a box office success. When a director, and actors are relating a story of this type you expect a rougher display and style. A refined actor would try to change the roll and make it more noble or classy than it was. I'll take unknowns, an interesting story, and a desire to make something more than a box office titan every time.

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39 out of 63 people found the following review useful:
Why the bad reviews?, 12 September 2007

Author: Maxxy74 from United Kingdom
I went to see this film the other day and although its not my type of film, I can't see why the reviews were so bad. Its very violent, very gory and has some real laugh out loud moments and in the cinema I was sitting in it had plenty of "oooo's and ahhh's" so the audience seemed to like it. Its definitely been made for the lads and is a working class film. Its not just some mickey mouse gangster film trying to imitate Lock Stock and two smoking barrels. It has similarities to Goodfellas and I think as a low budget British gangster flick it deserves to be praised for what it is. It has some amazing performances from Ricci Harnett, Terry Stone and Roland Manookian who in my opinion jointly make this film worthy of at least a 3* review and at best 4*. My advice is go and see this film and make up your own mind, don't let some upper class snob who hasn't watched this film properly and obviously has issues with the working class and the British Gangster Genre sway you from what I think is going to be a cult British film like The Football Fatory and Green Street are.

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41 out of 68 people found the following review useful:
Exceptonally violent British crime film, 27 October 2007

Author: arthur lang (grindhouse74) from United Kingdom
After watching Rise Of The Footsoldier i knew it was a great British gangster film, at first you think its going to be along the lines of Green Street, ID or The Football Factory but its much more and much better than that. The film follows Carlton Leech a football hooligan and all round street thug, after he has been hired as a doorman because he can handle himself in violent situations, he naturally works his way up to more criminal dealings, well you can guess the rest. With a few encounters with some very brutal people mostly his friends, the film gives you an insight into British crime like no other. Director Julian Gilbey who made his mark with the impressive Rollin With The Nines has created a powerhouse of a movie, he lays on the violence thick and fast that borders on exploitation which may put off some viewers, so if you have a problem with brutality stay away, if not check it out. It does not reach the heights of Goodfellas(but what does?), so if your looking for something hardcore, this film pulls no punches.

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17 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
Mug, 4 January 2008

Author: DelBongo from Brighton, UK
Are Nick Love's movies too fackin' cerebral for ya? Then get straight dahn Blockbuster and get yourself some of this. And I ain't even avvin' a bubble, ya mug.

This film is allegedly based on the same true events that inspired the surprisingly respectable and proficient Sean Bean gangster flick Essex Boys, but such information suggests that this is going to have some kind of tenuous link to the real world. Not so. This is a loathsome, plot less and titanically mean-spirited cartoon that is so offensive and so depressing that it calls to mind nothing less than Meir Zarchi's evergreen vulgarity barometer I Spit On Your Grave.

Overlong and aimless, the flick just ambles briskly along, taking frequent pause to go off on random, inconsequential tangents, all of which culminate in either gratuitous sex or gratuitous violence, occasionally played for repugnant laughs that'll have most audiences continuously scraping their jaws off the floor.

It is completely impossible to overstate just how grotesquely pornographic the violence is, even when compared to the other specimens from this illustrious cinematic sub-genre. People are endlessly having their faces smashed in with bricks, their heads bludgeoned with metal poles, their backsides penetrated with blunt knives, often in glorious slow-motion, and even more often perpetrated by our lovably roguish hero. In 'is world, you gotta 'it em ard innit? Or else they don't respect ya, yeah?

Other highlights include... Our "hero" forming an impromptu posse of about ten strangers on a subway train, who take on (and end up beating into retreat) a tribe of around two hundred machete-wielding maniacs; our "hero" romancing, marrying and fathering the children of two posh, angelic and smitten beauties a few months apart; and our "hero" being accosted by a random blonde who nonchalantly begs for permission to fellate him.

And as if the swelling, disease-of-the-week string syrup on the soundtrack wasn't bad enough, the flick even has the audacity to go all Rashomon on us in the third act, pretentiously recounting a plot event repeatedly for no reason other than to garishly bask in the glory of another dozen senseless killings. And who the hell cares anyway? All that plot stuff just gets in the way of the gore. But fear not; after a couple of very brief minutes featuring three men swearing at each other in a Range Rover, the plasma is right back to flying around like jism in an apocalyptic gusher gangbang.

So, in short, its just like all those other recent British hooligan movies, only worse; it is manifestly the unbridled, most peerlessly idiotic, most misogynistic masturbation delusion of the thickest teenage fantasist in all of fackin' England.

Oh, and the actors are all so universally unconvincing that they make Elijah Wood in Green Street look like Lenny McLean.

Trust me. You need this movie like you need a brick-shaped dent in your bonce.

adam_ickle

my point is that they are the real deal and they make great films

adam_ickle

Extremely detailed characters Brit street gangster flick w steroids n Ecstasy, 16 September 2008

Author: dilbertsuperman from Baghdad
This movie gets a 9 because it's got a lot of things in one package- it basically gives you what a man wants for when watching a movie. There's a ton of creative brutal violence, a lot of hot naked women, drugs, club scenes and cops.

AND there's a plot that's intelligent instead of the usual junk that falls off the rotting maw of hollycrap.

PLOT: tough guy club stud gangsters muscle their way through the streets as they try to get a larger piece of the action. Our central character is a tad smarter than those around him and he watches several of them go down the hard way. The characters and how their lives interact are very well laid out and detailed. The conversation is real and the situations believable. This is a rugged raw movie about mid-level drug trade on the streets and the R&R that occurs in between, and the characters you meet while at it.

Good stuff- there's some slow moments here and there in between but these are all character development that makes the later scenes that much more biting.

adam_ickle

Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom
Rise of the Footsoldier is directed by Julian Gilbey who also co-writes the screenplay with Mike Hawk. It stars Ricci Harnett, Kierston Wareing, Craig Fairbrass, Roland Manookian, Terry Stone and Frank Harper. Plot follows the story of one Carlton Leech (sic), how he rose from being a football terrace hooligan to one of Essex's top club-land gangsters, and his involvement in the true-life murder of three drug Barron's in Rettendon, Essex in 1995.

I remember writing back in 1994 that there is a market for film's involving football hooligans. This was after the release of a film called I.D., the first, and still the best, film to put the itchy subject on the big screen. Four years later Guy Ritchie would make British gangsters hip, and since then a number of like minded British film's about hooligans, thugs, convicts and underworld crims have made their merry way to the screen. Some great: Lock Stock, Snatch, Sexy Beast, Football Factory, Layer Cake. Some mediocre: Cass, Revolver, Bronson. And some plain bad: Essex Boys, Bonded by Blood, The Business. What we do know is that whatever the quality, people want to see them, granted some of the viewers might actually be thugs or criminals themselves, getting off on another slice of blood marinated pie, but fact remains that the market remains the same, a number of film watchers enjoy their trips down the dark side of Britain.

But here's the question, where do we stop? After Cass, Bronson and now Rise of the Footsoldier, are we to assume that any hard man geezer can get a film made about him? Lets face it, we are not talking about Peter Sutcliffe or Dennis Nielson here. You sense that director Julian Gilbey realised this and made a film with two dovetailing stories, one about a hard man working his way thru the ranks of the underworld, the other about what might have led to three drug Barron big boys getting blasted to shotgun death one night in a dark country lane. Smart move, it gives his film an edge over other recent one dimensional film's of its ilk.

The top British film magazines have been savage on Rise of the Footsoldier, their critics clearly growing tired of having to sit thru yet another British thug movie. Yet although it clearly isn't the British Goodfella's; as one over keen DVD advertising executive called it, it's still a brutal and savage piece of film making aimed at a particular audience, who, it has to be said, will find tremendous amounts of things to enjoy about it. In many ways it's an ambitious attempt by Gilbey, threading the two stories together is a good move, and largely it works; tho fans of football hooliganism film's should note that this only fills the first ten minutes of the film. He's also tries to make his characters less psychotic than their crimes suggest they are, that doesn't work, but it's top marks for trying. Thus I disagree with those who have poured scorn on it as a piece of "thug !!!!!!", a film glorifying the bad seed that festers in society. Gilbey set out to shock, clearly, the subject matter calls for it, but he at least told a good story in the process and didn't shirk the big moments either.

Where it sits in the pantheon of Brit thug movies is to my mind quite high, because I found it riveting, nasty and often uneasy to sit thru. That has to be job done, no? Cast are mostly OK, with some of them familiar faces from other previous ne'er do well portrayals, and the snap-shot of the times is bright and sound-tracked accordingly. It's not a film I could watch with my mother, or even my missus, but the makers wasn't making that sort of film anyway. An acquired taste for sure, but still a tasty treat for those so inclined to the themes cooking in the pot. 8/10

adam_ickle

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A film based on the life of a person from football lout to a feared career criminal., 1 June 2010

Author: wgee21 from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Coming from Essex myself and also coming from very similar situations and people,i thought the film was quite genuinely acted.

A very underrated film by a selection of people. Told from the perspective of Carlton Leach,they obviously hammed it up a little in places,but these weren't pleasant people if they didn't like you.

All in all i think this is in ways better than Lock Stock as it was based on true events.

Good performances from Ricci Harnett,Terry Stone,Craig Fairbrass and Billy Murray,who actually had the Kray twins pay for him to go to acting school,as they liked his manner.

You learn something new everyday huh?

adam_ickle

the best and most brutal British gangster movie of all time, 26 January 2010

Author: daworldismine from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

rise of the foot soldier is the true story of the Essex boys, who's reign of terror came to a brutal end one night in a snowy lane in rettendon where the three leaders got executed at point blank range with shotguns while they were sitting in there range rover, we all know the story, hell it was even the basis for another movie 2000's Essex boys. but here it is portrayed faithfully and how it really went down, the movie is told from Carlton leach's point of view, who was a close friend of tony tucker(the boss of the firm) and the movie starts with him as a hooligan and he eventually becomes a door man and so on, until he meets tucker and eventually moves into heavier stuff. the movie is brutally violent but thats only because the things that happened were brutal themselves, i mean you see 3 men cant blasted in the face point blank range with a shotgun and i swear it's like your there. and the fact that all this horrible stuff really happened really gives it a hard edge, and i can promise you know none of its pretty, there is no glamour here, just the realities of that lifestyle and i have never before seen them portrayed so down and dirty and real. the rettendon range rover murders was shocking and brutal and so is the movie about it, but it's also a must see

fwor

adam_ickle wrote: »

my point is that they are the real deal and they make great films

The point of this thread is that, whether they make good films or not, nobody credible has come forward to say that they have ever made a return from their "investment" in Carnaby Films. The way that the company finances are structured suggests that nobody will in future.

Your only purpose here seems to be to cut and paste large volumes of irrelevant information to try to obscure this.

Willinho

I had a very good follow up today with Carnaby. I was on the phone with them for about 90 minutes and we went through in detail all of my questions and concerns which I raised on previous posts. I did tell them I think they should try and share more information with shareholders where possible as the accounts do not contain enough information in my opinion and unfortunately some answers I received in the past from Carnaby were incorrect. The key points raised were that:-

Revenue for the film in 2006 was about £2.8 million however £2.4 million of this was due to the sale and leaseback agreement so actually 'real revenue' was about £400k. The £2.4 million is then amortised in the accounts over 15 years and written off accordingly.

The £2.4 million above is also what I was told is what the film was made for previously, however this value is just the UK costs of the film which due to the amortisation above mean the company can reclaim a 20% tax credit. The rest of the film costs came out of location in Romania and so therefore fill the gap I was looking for in the accounts. Therefore the 'real revenue' for The Last Drop is actually £600k

For the last couple of years because revenue has been so low unfortunately its been eating up this £600k by ongoing costs such as auditing etc. All of the money raised for the film was spent on the film.

I would like to say that if you do have questions please contact Carnaby directly as they have some new people now who better understand the detail and can give fuller answers which is something I have been unfortunately lacking for the past 3 years.

I therefore do not have any concerns with Carnaby, unfortunately The Last Drop has just not done very well due to a number of reasons but I do not feel there is anything 'dodgy' going on.

On a positive note if we do not get our money back make sure you don't forget to reclaim any losses against your tax bill which will hopefully go some way to recouping some of our investment assuming The Last Drop doesn't return anything.

jimjames

Willinho wrote: »

For the last couple of years because revenue has been so low unfortunately its been eating up this £600k by ongoing costs such as auditing etc. All of the money raised for the film was spent on the film.

Very convenient that, nice touch for them to structure the films to manage to pay their ongoing costs but with nothing left for anyone who put money into it.