Pogoing into view with a big grin, some top tunes and period punch aplenty, Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s likeable but flawed biopic of a ’70s Belfast punk hero stands and stumbles on its charm levels.
In a breakout turn, Richard Dormer is optimism incarnate as Terri Hooley, a record-store owner who used music to spur a troubled generation.
His charm is winning, but it backs the film into a corner: the stress on uplift sidelines Hooley’s neglect of his wife (Jodie Whittaker) and kid, hitting a bum note in an otherwise persuasively buoyant tribute to a punk believer.
