Watch The Boys For Free

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

THE BOYS is a fine little film, very much of its era, that follows the court trial of a quartet of 'Teddy Boys' who are accused of knifing to death an old man. Via witness testimonials and the careful exploration of the case by both the defence and prosecution the story of one fateful night is told out through a mix of flashbacks and chronicled accounts.All of this feels fresh and original in the hands of Sidney J. Furie (THE ENTITY), a superior director who's tried his hand at many genres during many decades. THE BOYS suffers from being overlong with a running time that eclipses two hours but is quietly gripping for the most part and also very well acted. I particularly liked the way the accused are portrayed as mindless thugs at the outset, and yet when you get to hear their own story they change and become sympathetic; it's a little like RASHOMON. The ending completely wrongfoots the viewer, leaving this an unpredictable film throughout.The casting is exemplary. Richard Todd and Robert Morley are the big name stars here but it's the youths who really shine: in particular Dudley Sutton (aka LOVEJOY's Tinker!) is outstanding as the knife-wielding Teddy Boy. Ronald Lacey delivers a desperate turn some two decades before RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and only Jess Conrad feels wooden. The supporting cast is an endless parade of familiar faces: Patrick Magee, Roy Kinnear, Wilfrid Brambell, Felix Aylmer, Allan Cuthbertson, David Lodge, and music by The Shadows to boot. It's really magnificent.

Four young hooligans on the rampage apparently, scandalise intimidate and browbeat their way round the West End before brutally putting to death, with a knife, a night watchman in the course or furtherance of theft.Courtroom drama in which we're shown the same events two different ways, first by the witnesses and then the defendants, so that we don't know whether we're seeing the truth or not. Both versions are similar but the subtle differences are enormous in terms of whether they're innocent or guilty. We're inclined to believe the defendants, at first, that all there is against them is a "farrago of circumstantial evidence", as defending council, Robert Morley puts it. It all actually turns out to be a rather large red herring though.Kids carrying knives gives the film a bit of relevance for today. The boys' teddy boy clothes (actually rather smart) and music by the Shadows (mainly timpani drums) perhaps don't. The whole thing plods along for twenty minutes of events leading up to the crime: a bus to Surrey Docks with nervous conductor Roy Kinnear; a snack bar in a billiards hall; Alan Cuthbertson (who also pops up as a lawyer in Performance – and Twitchin in Fawlty Towers) as a motorist; Wilfrid Bramble (Steptoe) as a toilet attendant; and Colin Gordon, as Gordon Percy Lonsdale, waiting in a cinema cue to see Hungry For Love. Gordon was at the Ministry of Pensions for thirty two years and he's a widower. No wonder he's hungry for love. This is all punctuated by prosecution council Richard Todd telling witnesses in the dock to "take your time - watch his lordship's pencil", and Montgomery (Morley) giving it lots of "I put it to you" in defence. The film comes to life when, "backstage", Morley explodes and starts kicking off on the defendants. "You spread your net of terrorism over half of London…" "Leave him alone you fat, old…" replies Ronald Lacey (Harris in Porridge, Lacey also does a nice little turn in a Sweeney episode "Thou Shalt Not Kill") doing his daft, overgrown kid role. (His ambition is to own a big house in the country and have the Spurs playing on the football pitch "with only me watching, see.")We're left to draw our own conclusion as to why Stan (Dudley Sutton) commits murder: if you carry a knife you're going to use it sooner or later; we're all just one step away from losing control; or maybe it's all down to ineffectual parenting – Stan's dad (Wensley Pithey) can't even be arséd to apply for a council flat while his wife is dying of cancer.All in all this is a great snapshot of a forgotten era.

This is a very clever movie and a rather daring one.Anyone who has ever sat through a jury trial either as a spectator or a participant will recognise that the formula "The Boys" uses is based strictly on the court proceedings.The Prosecution,unemotional,cold,precise,outline the case and submit the evidence of the witnesses.As prima facie evidence of the defendants' guilt comes to light,the jury/audience,bombarded with these apparent facts has little doubt of their culpability.By the time The Prosecution has rested there will be a groundswell of opinion that they have proved their case.But then the Defence,declamatory,not fettered by the rules of evidence,highly emotional,puts forward its rebuttal of all that has gone before.Invariably it is given more licence by the judge and invariably it takes advantage of this - as it has every right to do.Doubts about the defendants' guilt begin to creep in.The judge sums up,his parting words being..."The truth,members of the jury,is for you and you alone to decide". In this case it is a Capital Trial,the charge being one of murder in the furtherance of theft,by 1962 one of the few offences that could get you hanged.By then juries were notoriously reluctant to convict for such a crime even if faced with overwhelming evidence.Were "The Boys" just four ordinary lads on a night out,short of money,but determined to make the best of things,or were they the 1960s equivalent of out - of - control so - called feral teenagers,a menace to all who were unfortunate enough to cross their paths as they seek to commit mindless violence? Evidence for both propositions is submitted,the home life of these young boys is examined at some length and just when you might be thinking that they are unfortunates trapped in the seemingly inescapable cycle of low wages,low expectations ,disillusioned and disenfranchised,and now demonised by the police and the disapproving middle classes who are trying to keep them in their place,two of them break down under cross - examination.They were guilty after all. All that is left for the Defence is an impassioned plea for clemency,not unlike that of Orson Welles in the near contemporary "Compulsion". Mr Robert Morley is suitably flamboyant as the Defence Counsel,a man who gives every appearance of having become emotionally involved in the plight of his clients.Mr Richard Todd,the Prosecution,is all business. When he breaks through the boys' lies in the witness box it is just another day at the office to him. The Boys themselves are perhaps a little too lower middle class to appear at home in terrace house and tenement,but the overall feel of the movie is just right for the time. In the end it is the adversarial nature of British Justice that has come under examination.The innocence or guilt of The Boys - two of whom were old enough to be hanged - to be decided in the light of the relative eloquence and ability of their advocates.The message is clear enough - the truth is too precious to be left in the hands of lawyers.Yet what we have in "The Boys" is a demonstration that the law - made in the first place by lawyers -is debated by two lawyers in front of another lawyer who will make a decisison that,likely as not,will later be debated by another panel of lawyers who,in turn,will make a decision that,if it displeases one of the lawyers,will be put before yet another panel of lawyers. Somewhere,under all that lawyering,the truth lies bleeding.

I came across this film channel-hopping late one night and got instantly hooked, partly by wondering how the writer might twist the courtroom action but mainly for the fabulous B/W images of working class London in the era between the dreary 50s and the swinging 60s.Well worth watching, too, for a sterling cast of British troupers, as well as a genuinely unexpected ending.And good, too, to see some political awareness slipped into the action with its portrayal of working-class Londoners, as well as an acknowledgement of boredom - not many many films are brave enough to show their characters genuinely trying to deal with boredom!