Things to Do Before You're 30

Dir: Simon Shore

2004

*

Based on the 1997 Dutch feature film, All Stars, written by Mischa Alexander and Jean van de Velde, 2005's Things to Do Before You're 30 misses the point and wasn't half as popular in England as the original one was in Holland. Indeed, the Dutch film was so popular it got a remake fourteen years later, affectionately named The Old Stars. It clearly wanted to get a piece of the renascence the British film industry enjoyed in the late 90s but was a good five years too late. It stared Billie Piper - a few years after she was at peak popularity, Shaun Parkes - because of his role in Human Traffic, Jimi Mistry - because of his role in East is East, Emilia Fox - because they got lucky and Dougray Scott - because everyone makes mistakes (Scott being the mistake-maker in this scenario). It tries to appeal purely by association. The characters all have links to the fictional amateur football team Athletico Greenwich, a 20 year old club about to celebrate their 500th match. The original players, who are all now in their late twenties, continue to play for the club but life keeps getting in the way and commitments mean the club is starting to slip away. Somehow a list title Things to Do Before You're 30 appears in the script and the players reassess their lives at the tender age of 28 or thereabouts. It's farcical. Serious issues such as coming out, pregnancy and parenthood are mixed in with stereotype, cliché and the idea that every man dreams of having a threesome at one point in their lives. It's one of the clumsiest films I've ever seen, handling the balance between drama and comedy with boxing gloves - while drunk - on a tightrope. Alliance Atlantis had a game plan in the late 90s/early 00s that basically read 'throw all our money at the first script that comes through the letter box'. It lead to their comeuppance and they were bought out by the devil a couple of years later. It was dated before it was even filmed, the British film industry suffered many of these awful films, it was an embarrassment to see them arrive by the truck load. Suffice to say, watching it shouldn't be on your own Things to Do Before You're 30/40/50/dead list and if you've already seen it then pray you'll forget it before you're 30/40/50/dead.