Great fun for fans of music trivia. Doesn't need to engage on any other level to be successful.

Can't quite keep the momentum going in the second half, but that's really the only drawback. 24 Hour Party People made me melancholy for a period I completely missed on the account of not being born yet. The love for music, the experience of 'being there' and the city shine through, and it's a blast to be surrounded by so many wonderful British actors playing interesting characters/music legends. All over the place in a good way, stylish, a wonderful balance of humor, semi-documentary and drama.

An interesting insight into the grass roots of rave and the people who started it all, it's not entirely acurate, but touching and funny none the less.

The cinematography and aesthetic elements of the film excellently portray an era, but the screenplay falls into "nowhere" in the second half, with no certain direction to hold on the attention.

Madchester was an ingenious music scene, and this picture captures it perfectly.

It's good. It feels good. It feels like I've just watched a good film.

"Winterbottom and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce knowingly play fast and loose with the truth, preferring to 'print the legend'. Manchester musos will fume at the absences and the outright lies, but that's just fuel to the film's fire."

Fun and energetic docudrama. The tongue in cheek approach to the material works well.

disappointing only in that the movie really didnt center around the early Factory days of joy division/new order, favoring instead the latter-day madchester scene of the happy mondays. but coogan gives a great performance, and the music brought me back to my youth.

Watched it when it first came out, introduced me to Winterbottom. The film is full of nice little winks, and as a mainstream film sorta expands the borders of docu-drama (actors encountering their real life counterparts etc.) If you liked it you may want to check Winterbottom and Coogan's "Tristram Shandy".

Joy Division is the one of the best bands ever so I can't in good conscience rank this any lower.

Not bad. Neat little history pic about the punk movement, the rave movement, and the rise of the Manchester movie scene and Tony Wilson's role in it. The soundtrack is the best part of the film.

"I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more." Coogan=funny genius.

Insight into the debauched and chaotic character of everything to do with Factory Records. Relies very heavily on the fact that Factory Records is/was awesome, playing it very heavy-handed with the quirks yet for all the 'controversy' being pretty boring. After all the tongue-in-cheek and style, it clings to the lame reality-tv notion of Famous People doing Dumb Things as something actually worth watching.