DVDebut: Upper-class twats up to no good in Lone Scherfig's rich-are-rotten THE RIOT CLUB

An Education, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself and Italian for Beginners were among the best movies of their respective years (2009, 2002 and 2000), and perhaps the most important thing they have in common is their director/sometimes writer, Lone Scherfig. If her latest endeavor, THE RIOT CLUB will not be included in this year's best lists, it is still a good enough example of a sub-genre not that often seen of late: the black comedy/ melodrama of class distinctions. It's British, of course. (They know the territory about as well as anyone).

Whether or not this tale of uber-nasty high-born Oxford students is based on "truth" -- a members-only society of wealthy, upper-class students who look down on the poor and middle-class, deriving ugly fun at their expense -- it's enough to know that it sure could be.

Further, the manner in which Ms Scherfig (pictured at right) and her writer, Laura Wade (who adapted the film from her own play) have brought these boys to life, their behavior seems all too believable and consistent.

By the time we've reached the shocking and ugly climax, over-the-top plays like par-for-the-course.

This is one of those films that will send the wealthy, entitled set into paroxysms of rage due to the fact that these people are shown to have so little understanding or empathy for anyone outside their closed circle. Oh, yes -- and they treat women no better than they handle those poor and/or bourgeois. There certainly are some decent rich (I've discovered a very few out of all those I've encountered over my 74 years), but if one looks, worldwide, across the vast divide that separates the wealthy from everyone else, the picture is not pretty. And due to the ever-growing disparity between rich and poor, this gap/attitude/divide worsens and becomes more difficult to correct with each passing year.

So the movie indeed wears its politics on its sleeve, but it entertains us even as it attempts to finger-point and educate. It is well-cast, -acted, and -directed, and while the writing is decent and the dialog generally believable, I do wish that Ms Wade has done a better job of it. What is needed here is something approaching what Oscar Wilde might have managed had he been inclined or able to tackle this particular subject, or what Alan Bennett did accomplish with his great play and film, The History Boys, another tale of British youth (a bit younger) on the rise.

Instead we get pretty much the expected, executed by a good-looking and talented cast of young men who manage -- via Wade, Scherfig and the actors' performances -- to differentiate well between these alternately bullying and cowardly sleazebags of tomorrow.  Normally, I'd name and comment on the performers, who are, to a man, just fine. But in this case I'll leave the IMDB to point out their names and only mention the leading elder actor, Tom Hollander, who once again gives a telling, subtle and comic performance as the representative of the older entitled generation.

The Riot Club, via IFC Films and running 107 minutes, arrived on DVD earlier this month & can be purchased or rented from the usual suspects.

MR. NICE -- Bernard Rose's Oxford grad/ drug dealer/family man bio-pic is... nice

Bernard Rose is a man who clearly should stay away from BIG movies. His version of Anna Karenina and his Beethoven bio-pic enhanced neither subject, yet his smaller movies have often been surprisingly interesting. The early Paperhouse (1988) quickly acquired a cult following, as did his entry into the horror genre Candyman, while his 2008 film The Kreutzer Sonata proved one of the better movie imaginings of male jealousy. Now comes a film that combines some of the "bigness" of the Rose-of-yore with the filmmaker's storytelling skills, and the result is a relatively painless paint-by-number detailing of the "facts" of a very bizarre British life.

The word facts, above, is in quotes because the film -- directed by Mr. Rose (shown at right) and also adapted by him from the supposedly autobiographical book (of the same title as the movie and written by its main character, Howard Marks) -- leans pretty heavily on the gospel according to Mr. Marks. And while this son-of-the-working-class who managed to get himself an Oxford education gives himself full discredit for being a lousy husband and father (early on, at least), the movie also revels is his attractiveness, humor and general ain't-I-just-one-terrific-guy loveableness.

That Marks is played very well by one of cinema's best actors at doing crazy, Rhys Ifans (above), helps matters enormously. Ifans is surrounded by some excellent support, as well: especially David Thewlis as IRA bad boy Jim McCann (below, with gun) and Christian McKay (Orson in Me and Orson Welles) as an Oxford chum.

Women's role are stock and could have been mailed in by most any actress. Chloë Sevigny gets the biggest of them (as Mrs. Nice, below, center) and is properly forgettable. My biggest gripe, casting-wise, is the use of that great Spanish actor Luis Tosar while neglecting to give him a decent role.

The movie skips around from England and Afghanistan (below) to Hollywood and back, and despite its two hour length the pace seldom slackens, and -- for those of us who knew little to nothing about Howard Marks, this is time interestingly spent.

Mr. Nice, running 121 minutes, opens tomorrow -- Friday, June 3 -- in New York City at the Cinema Village. One would imagine it might be opening elsewhere, too, but I can find no information on the site of its supposed distributor MPI Media Group.  Your move.