Fantastic!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

(54%) A likable film about a likable, largely unknown man who opens a Belfast record shop during the troubled 1970's, and in a similar vane to Brian Epstein helps change the course of music history. There really isn't a whole lot here in terms of surprises, and some of the ideas really don't work as well as others such as Hooley's comedic, rather silly hallucinations, but this still tells its quite informative story well. Although its finest asset is the fact that it shows that it's possible to have real significance in a very competitive industry without ever selling millions of records and becoming mega rich, which is something this film more or less is all about to the point of relishing in it.

Good Vibrations offers a perspective we rarely see in movies from the same period – the punks and their leader Terry Hooley display a rather adorable innocence. Hooley and the young members of bands such as Rudi and the Outcasts were dealing with a different world than their more famous counterparts in England, such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Brought up with the Troubles, these rockers are looking more to avoid political trouble. Compared with the intimidating likes of Johnny Rotten, their attitude seems practically welcoming. There are no lips, noses and ears harpooned with safety pins, no talk of toppling the towers of political corruption and no swastikas. Very refreshing to find a movie with such heart.

This is a soundtrack, not a film. It doesn't ask any questions, lay out any arguments, or challenge any taboos. It's got a stonking lead performance and it looks period correct when not depending on stock imagery. It's got loads of minor pop music - a good mixtape, the sort of themed selection you'd find cover mounted on Uncut or Mojo magazine. It could have been a blast. Or, with some genuine insight to the personal relationships only vaguely sketched in the script, it could have been a more substantial drama.But it's a cheap shot to prop up Terri Hooley's self hype with endless stock footage of the troubles - especially the Miami showband material. As if the scene where Terri and his little band of gullible, fame seeking youths being stopped by the Brits and discovered to be the true cross-community ideal was somehow related (what an awkward scene that was).Truth is, punk didn't do much in or for Northern Ireland and after its brief bubble burst, Hooley never found another "wave" to incompetently exploit - except perhaps the trendy "hagiography of failures in popular culture" that passes for biography in too many recent films. (Next: The Gary Glitter Story...?).Where it really struggles to even entertain is in constantly trying to raise the minimal narrative above a basic "let's put on a show in the barn" story, by co-opting historical sectarian division and political oppositions as contextual justification for a bunch of people who were essentially running away, rather than confronting it.The fawning climax, a clumsy collage of wet eyed forgiveness and self-justification during a concert in the Ulster Hall ("It holds 2000 people!") is downright creepy.And if PUNK meant anything, anywhere, then surely Hooley's apocryphal shout "New York has the hair, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason." is its betrayal.

This is a biopic about Terri Hooley, the owner of Good Vibrations record shop and record label. His biggest claim to fame was in getting The Undertones seminal single Teenage Kicks to DJ John Peel. Considering that this became Peel's favourite song of all time, this is something of note. I hadn't heard of Hooley, or Good Vibrations but this isn't too surprising seeing as – aside from The Undertones who were only involved with him briefly – the other punk bands on his label were very minor players such as The Outcasts and Rudi. It's probably fair to say that the movie overstates the significance of Hooley and of Belfast as a punk capital.Nevertheless, this is still a good film. It successfully illustrates how punk rock served a different purpose in Belfast compared to most other places. It happened during the height of The Troubles and music was a means of bringing people together from both sides of the fence, while the youthful anger of punk rock tapped into something very relevant in a population living in grim times with the fear of violence a constant situation. To help give a better feel for the times there are actual newsreels from the period spliced into the story. Although the politics always hover in the background and never really move into the central ground of the story. This is above all a story about the love of music and its power to overcome wider concerns. Although, admittedly it failed to bring an end to the civil war, seeing as it lasted for a further twenty years.The story is a fairly standard feel-good biopic with a little bit of adverse drama thrown in about two thirds of the way in. In fairness, it's only being true to its source material which is fairly slight to begin with. The period setting is captured quite well in its beige horror although there were some (very) dodgy wigs on display. This will connect most with folks who remember the punk times, especially ones who were in Belfast at the time. But it is a good film about a minor piece of music history.