D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die…
Twin Town, 1997.
Directed by Kevin Allen.
Starring Llyr Ifans, Rhys Ifans and Dougray Scott.
If you have ever visited Swansea, or any place in Wales for that matter, you would have no doubt seen or experienced the idiotic world of the Welsh people. Twin Town is a darkly comic slice of life in one of the principality’s main cities and follows a pair of brothers known as the Lewis Twins (Rhys and Llyr Ifans) as they trash, traumatise and terrify the inhabitants of their small coastal city.
When the Twins’ father, Fatty (Huw Ceredig), falls off a ladder whilst working for local businessman and wannabe gangster Bryn (William Thomas) they seek reparations. When Bryn tells them to clear off they decide to enact revenge and cut off his wife’s poodle’s head. Bryn uses his contact, and fellow drug dealer, in the police force Terry (Dougray Scott) to take and eye for an eye. However, Terry decides that instead of cutting off the head of the Twins’ dog, Cantona, he would set his kennel on fire and in doing so kill the Twin’s father, mother and sister. When the Twins look for revenge a second time there are no warnings or holding back and everyone involved must look out!
Twin Town is another cult classic that was a huge flop at the box office. The film is filled from start to finish with the most hilarious quips and is quotable over and over again. Kevin Allen has managed to capture the lives and people of Swansea in a phenomenal caricature of the reality that is life in Wales. When asked in film school if I could choose any script ever written and call it my own which would it be I would always choose Twin Town.
Twin Town is a film you must see before you die because you really have to see it in order to believe it. In one scene the Twins share a bath and have used the showerhead adaptor on the plugs to make a bong. As they take it in turns to quiz each other if one of them gets an answer wrong they must take a large toke on the home made bong and then hold their breath under water as the other holds their legs in the air. Honestly, I couldn’t make it up!
“As they say in Llandough, chow for now!”
D.J. Haza
Follow my blog at http://djhaza.blogspot.com/
Follow me at http://www.facebook.com/djhaza
Originally published December 20, 2011. Updated April 10, 2018.
