15 Most Underrated Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

14. The Riot Club

The Riot Club
Universal Pictures International

It's impossible to discuss Lone Scherfig's third English language film without first brazenly exclaiming just how utterly detestable its characters all are. Starting out as elitist toffs with an untimely sense of entitlement, by the end of the film all ten members of the eponymous society, even de facto protagonist Max Iron's Miles, have become some of the most skin-crawling characters ever put up on screen. Many take this as a damning criticism of The Riot Club itself, stating it shamelessly idolises the rich and rotten, but isn't that completely mislabelling the point?

You're supposed to find these Oxford students, whose favourite past-time is to trash a restaurant before jollily paying off the damages and running along on their way, the complete nadir of society. That's why the slow-build of horror, and lengthy sequence of destruction, are so painfully dragged out; it's not exactly a comfortable watch, but that doesn't make it a bad film.

Some strange choices in adapting stageplay Posh broaden the scope and thus undercut the source's more satirical bent (Riot's based on the antics of the real-life Bullingdon Club, who count David Cameron, George Osbourne and Boris Johnson as alum), but as the message is so ingrained in the film that that's not a deal-breaker.

Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.