A warm nostalgic glow surrounds this likably daft and zeitgeisty one-crazy-night clubbing adventure from 1999. It’s a Cool Britannia time-capsule written and directed by Justin Kerrigan, starring John Simm, Shaun Parkes, Lorraine Pilkington, Nicola Reynolds and a cherubic young Danny Dyer making his movie debut. Dyer’s character ends up down the pub moodily swearing off drugs for ever – and if we wondered how that was going to turn out, we can flashforward to his performance this year in Nick Love’s Marching Powder, in which he does much the same thing.
Human Traffic revolves around a group of gurning mates: a classic 90s ensemble of mononymous characters – Jip, Koop, Lulu, Nina and Moff – individually introduced in freeze-frame voiceover in that distinctive 90s Britmovie style, as popularised by Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But those films were from Mars and this one is from Venus. It’s a sweeter story of the loved-up. They struggle through terrible jobs in the week and prepare for a massive night out on a Friday involving landlines, smoking indoors, proto-Ali G characters, no smartphones, no social media and some cameos from Howard Marks, Carl Cox and Andrew Lincoln (in those days an icon for his role in TV’s This Life).
