Dropkick is a Quadropheniac

Quadrophenia is a mod film starring Sting.

dope.

This concept film for the Who's concept album of the same name is a gritty look at mod culture in Britain during the 60's.
The drugs, the violence, and pop culture of the time are all accurately portrayed here. At least i think it is, i wasn't born yet.

This plays like many other morality rebellious youth films.
Like Kids or Basketball Diaries, the film follows a group of youthful people who fill up the majority of their lives with drugs, sex, and especially in this case rock and roll.
Films like these are usually critically acclaimed, usually by the same critics old enough to live through the time that's being documented on film ; some ten years prior.
What's important about films like these is not how accurately it shows a certain period of time but how accurately it reflects our own days of yore.

Quads, can be taken as a terrific portrayal of the Mod scene, of a time rife with youthful rebellion and the true beginning of the tradition that our young generation must always be lost and completely out of their minds.
but for me what stuck out were the little nuances that the characters showed in compassion, love, jealousy, lust, envy, and hate.
Our protagonist is a likable enough bloke who goes from charming to completely insane to downtrodden by the end of the film.
He's driven to this state by the simple effects of just growing up, and it becomes clear that some of us human beings simply can't cope with that.

This isn't The Who's film, this is for anyone growing up at a loss. Anyone can relate with how silly love can be growing up, how unfair things turn sometimes. How it drives us to vices and how it makes us want to drive really fast on our mopeds. right?


It's been over thirty years since this flick came out and i feel it's more relevant than newer pics on the subject such as Kids. This one gets the absurdity of being a teenager out right. Shows us that sometimes life just shits on us. That life is hard and it's how we deal with it that matters.

The last act was a bit of a write off to me. Too much Who playing trying to tie into a movie that wasn't playing enough Who for a film based on a Who album.
In quick succession we hear several Who songs as were shown long cuts of a kid uncertain about his life. It felt like a cheap tie in. Almost as if the film was getting away from itself with a good thing and quickly remembers it's trying to sell more records.

However the first two acts are extremely well done. A very young Ray Winestone makes a terrific turn as our protagonist's good old friend who is now a rocker which brings up ideas of loyalty. Can mods coexist with rockers? Can punks hang out with new wave kids? Can metal heads be friends with clubbers? Can hipsters coexist with yippies? and so on, and so on.
Sting is amazing as the much envied king Mod so to speak, who kicks rockers and coppers asses only to take their names.

Overall quite enjoyable and definitely worth its cult like status.
Only it's the heart that sold this one, not the Who songs.


Dropping out,
-Kick