I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

KICKS is a virtual three-hander about a couple of teenage girls and their obsession with a handsome young footballer. To this end, they arrange to spend a night with the man, only for the ugly truth about him to emerge during the course of a torrid few hours.To be fair, the premise isn't a bad one with plenty of potential for drama and intrigue, but KICKS does nothing with it and the film as a whole soon fizzles out. The low budget is apparent in the poor quality of the performances coming from Jamie Doyle (wooden) and Nicola Burley (no presence). Kerrie Hayes is by far the best thing in this, delivering a real star-making turn, and it's no surprise that out of the three she's the one who's gone on to the likes of TV miniseries THE MILL.In the end, though, it's the almost overwhelming boredom that brings KICKS to its knees. The characters are unlikeable and while there's some fun to be had from the rather nihilistic look at celebrity in the modern age, it all feels weak and afraid to follow through with the set-up. KICKS is one of those films where absolutely nothing happens and you'd be far better off doing something else than watch it.

Kicks contains a powerful cultural message for everyone particularly if like myself you live in the UK, where a part of our media culture is unjustly focused on Footballers and WAGS (otherwise known as Wives and Girlfriends) to the extent of shallow worship. In Kicks we are shown the dangerous obsession such worship can lead to.Nicole and Jasmine are two teenage girls from opposite walks of life. Nicole from a working class background and a broken family while Jasmine lives in an up - scale house surrounded by wealth yet both girls are in search of the same goal, to live the WAG's lifestyle. Together they become determined to seek the affections of a local football star by following him to local nightclubs and hanging around his home. It all sounds very pathetic but it is unfortunately an aspect included in today's generation where girls want to be a part of the media frenzied shallowness without understanding the consequences. In Jasmine's case it is not surprising since she has been raised around an environment where wealth is everywhere and looks are given unnecessary attention, made obvious in the scene where Jasmine's Mother had Nicole feel her breast to prove they are real as if it was a great triumph in appearance.But with Nicole it is more of a tragic circumstance. Kicks hints at the isolation Nicole experiences at home. Her Mother always at work, her Father does not bother to contain a relationship with Nicole and her Brother is away in the Army all revealed to us by brief snippets of mise en scene. It's hard not to sympathise with Nicole as she becomes so desperate to fill a void in her life that she places undying love and loyalty to a man she has never met, showing the devotion some of today's youth place in media figures, how this part of our culture is both a powerful and harmful aspect. Predictably Kicks soon sends Nicole and Jasmine's distorted visions crashing down to earth.They soon meet their Footballing idol Lewis on a night which exposes the hidden cracks and dark truths in their obsessions and the dream they seek. The playful sexuality between themselves and their idol quickly turns ugly when he turns sexually aggressive in his demands and revelations about his private affairs come to surface which turns Nicole off and makes Jasmine become annoyed with herself for having feelings for him to the point where she uses her body to confront her disgust with their idol's true self. Although Jasmine does this as an act of revenge it also shows the extent she and Nicole were emotionally vulnerable to these obsessions making them fragile victims to their desires.The events bring to life the falsehoods of these dreams and so called ambitions, that in the end it is simply not worth it. Although Kicks story wise was not difficult to decipher, its themes of a low class culture which people revolve their lives around was done in a realistic tone making it sadder of a realisation that they are girls of this generation who seek to be a WAG solely on the basis of glamorised media reporting which in conclusion makes Kicks a thoughtful piece of social commentary.

Two teenage girls from Liverpool are romantically fixated on a soccer player. On learning that he is about to transfer to a European team, they kidnap him.As usual, the actors playing the teenagers are noticeably older than the ages they are playing. Having said that, all three of the principals are very good (I have already come to the conclusion that Nichola Burley is well worth watching, but Kerrie Hayes is also excellent).The problem is that, as you can tell from the synopsis, the story is simple and slight and, by the time some real drama gets under way, you may well have lost interest. There are lots of moody atmospheric shots, but one gets the impression that director Lindy Heymann thinks she is making a movie with a lot more meat on the bones than is actually the case. The film is not a bad effort, but needed tightening up in its earlier stages.

I noticed this film by chance in my local video rental shop. Directed by Lindy Heymann (who received a British Independent Film Award in 2002 for co-directing Showboy), "Kicks" premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2009 but was overshadowed by the praise heaped on Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. It tells of two Liverpudlian girls in their mid-to-late teens who follow everything to do with Liverpool star player Lee Cassidy (Jamie Doyle). Fanatically. Peeking through a high wall to see him training, they progress to waiting for him for hours after matches, hanging around outside his luxury apartment, and breaking into the underground complex where his silver Mercedes is parked.The two female leads are fantastic: Nichola Burley (who will feature in this year's Wuthering Heights) plays the black-haired WAG wannabe Jasmine and Kerrie Hayes the poorer, fair-haired Nicole who is convinced that she is in love with Lee and longs for the famous footballer to rescue her from the depressing limitations and boredom of her life. Where will the two girls' infatuation lead when their heartthrob announces a sudden transfer to Real Madrid? Given the social realist tone of the film, we know that the consequences of their unbridled projections are likely to be bleak.The film's title takes on an extra nuance in some of the final, painful moments. Blending burgeoning sexuality, female friendship and social commentary on celebrity culture and the aspirations of many modern-day British teenagers, it asks us: When does a teenage crush become something more irrational? Where does idolisation end and stalking begin? What could be the consequences of confusing our fantasies with reality? And what are the dangers of the position occupied by celebrities in modern culture and society? In doing so - and this is one of the key positives of Leigh Campbell's screenplay - idolisation is not depicted as static but as a process: Nicole, in particular, goes through a gamut of emotions in the course of her celebrity obsession, shifting from dreamy hope, through disappointment, to a desire for revenge. But the script reveals deficiencies in the second half, especially with regard to the lines given to Lee. The pacing and plausibility falter in the long scene inside the caravan, spoiling the tension in this otherwise superb, energetic film. (8 stars) Extras include an 18-minute featurette with the director and two female leads, along with the trailer.Recommended if you like: Me Without You, Morvern Callar, Fish Tank, My Summer Of Love, This Is England