The Violators (2015) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by aurora ꨄ ★★★½

  men are always the problem

• Review by Ghostsmut ★★★★

  The Violators had possibly the best two first and second acts of all the films I saw at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The third act fell down trying to bring it all together but hey, I do like something that tries as hard at this.

  The Violators opens by following the day to day life of a teenager. We are immediately presented with a behind view and her ass is mostly centre frame. Just through the viewing of this we begin to objectify her. Her jeans are tight and she is very attractive. However, after being led astray by the director we get the first bombshell - she's celebrating her 15th birthday today. Congrats! Everyone in the audience are…

• Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★ 10

  Helen Walsh's directorial debut is an adaptation of her own novel, the story of Shelly (Lauren McQueen) who has been rehoused in the Wirral area following years of familial abuse for both her and her brothers at the hands of their father. It's clear from the off that the 15 year old teenager has had to become older than her years; her older brother and legal guardian is useless and so it falls to her to look after her younger brother Jerome. It's also clear that her abuse has made her older than her years too and she possesses a hard faced sexuality that she spends the first half of the film challenging the world with.

  Into Shelly's life comes…

• Review by rowan ★★★★★ 2

  if i ever have a son and he's not exactly like jerome then i want a refund

• Review by Lucy Alice 🌿 ★★ 1

  This was a movie with lots of ass shots.

  Also, how did everything suddenly just work out?

• Review by Cate ★★★

  The third act of this feels very Hollyoaks: After Dark, and I don't know why it had to be so all up in its teen star, but I did love to watch a small local film by a female director.

• Review by exorcismemily ★★★

  The Violators was okay. There was a lot of potential here, and I wish the story would have been a little tighter. It's good for a low-budget drama, and I would check out another movie by this director/writer.

  
  CW - child abuse (physical, emotional, sexual - not graphic), child neglect, statutory rape

• Review by Cliff ★★

  Merseyside is such a dump that Birkenhead - where The Violators is set - would be regarded as a complete shithole almost anywhere else in the country, yet is said to be one of the nicest towns in the area. I guess it depends whether you live in a litter-strewn, crime-ridden, poverty-stricken part like 15 year-old protagonist Shelly does, or in a middle-class gated estate like her unlikely new friend Rachel. In a sense, you can see why such a place was chosen for this rather generic British social realism film, though the Shelly/Rachel dichotomy is the least interesting or believable aspect of its story.

  It simmers more successfully at the grubbier end of the spectrum. Shelly's legal guardian is…

• Review by TheMovieWaffler.com ★★★★

  English author Helen Walsh's filmmaking debut The Violators is not only one of the best movies made by a novelist, but one of 2016's best British movies, boasting one of the year's finest central performances to boot.

  Read the full review at themoviewaffler.com

• Review by eebzay ★★

  The Violators is a British kitchen sink sort of thriller written and directed by Helen Walsh and starring Lauren McQueen as a 15 year old girl desperately trying to keep her head above water any way she can.

  The synopsis for the film both here on Letterboxd and on Amazon - where I watched it - are both pretty wide of the mark in terms of what actually happens in the movie. Both give rise to the idea that the central thrust of the film is going to be the friendship between two teenage girls from opposite sides of the track, something like Pawel Pawlikowski’s ‘My summer of Love,’ or Melanie Laurent’s ‘Breathe’ when in fact the film focuses almost…

• Review by Stu ★★½ 2

  Dour it's-grim-up-north drama with a plot that centres on a stepbrother and stepsister struggling to kick against several pricks: their abusive, incarcerated father, an aggressive brother/step-brother, local bullies, a sleazy and violent loan shark and a spurned, vindictive rich girl. There are committed performances but the final act is rushed and far-fetched.

• Review by Gaz Evans ★★★★

  Being a fan of Helen Walsh's writing, I had been looking forward to this film for a while.
  On the whole I was not disappointed, the story and narrative was fantastic and all the performances were strong. The editing and cinematography perfectly suited the tone of the piece with bits of flair when needed (I love a good jump cut sequence and it was used perfectly here) but never distracting from the story.

  The one thing letting it down was there had obviously been some mic issues on the recording and the quality of the sound edit and mix did not help (no fill on the poor mic audio to make it less noticeable, almost clipping in places and ADR…