Purely Belter
Encyclopedia
Purely Belter is a 2000
British
comedy
drama film
directed by Mark Herman
about two teenagers (Chris Beattie and Greg McLane) trying to get money, by any means necessary, in order to get season ticket
s for home games played by the FA Premier League
football
team Newcastle United
.
It is based on the novel The Season Ticket by Jonathan Tulloch.
Other actors in the movie include Roy Hudd
, Charlie Hardwick
, Tim Healy
, Kerry Ann Christiansen
and Kevin Whately
. There is also a cameo appearance by footballer Alan Shearer
, whose car the boys steal.
dialect expression. Pure or Purely simply means very, and Belter or Belta means great or good. Despite it being based in Newcastle Upon-Tyne and following Newcastle United F.C, the actors playing Gerry and Sewell are from Sunderland and the phrase "Purely Belter" as spoken in the film has a Mackem
(Sunderland dialect) aspect.
The phrase is spoken several times in the film, first by Sewell when he and Gerry go skinny dipping after stealing Shearer's car and later when they dream of the freedom they will have when they get money.
Sewell and Gerry, football-mad teenagers from broken families in Gateshead, break into Newcastle United's St James' Park
stadium and steal the "sacred" turf from the penalty spot. After this success, they dream of earning money to get season tickets, with aid from their guardian angel, the Angel of the North
. For the two tickets they will need nearly a thousand pounds. After attempts to make money from collecting scrap and baby sitting, they eventually graduate to more criminal activities, including shoplifting and housebreaking. Gerry keeps the money they accummulate in a tin box at home.
Sewell, who lives with his permanently befuddled grandfather (Roy Hudd), adopts a dog who follows him after wandering away from his owner, a local thug. He also dreams of Gemma, a girl who is engaged to Zak, a muscular ice-hockey player for the "Whitley Bay Warriors". At home, Gerry lives with his sickly mother and sister Clare, who has a baby called "Sheara". They are separated from their violent father who has been sexually abusing Gerry's other sister Bridget, who has run away from home. When his father finds where they live and badly beats Gerry's mother, the family have to move to a secret location. Gerry is bribed by a social worker to attend school for two weeks after which he will get two free football tickets. At the school he is bullied by his teacher (Kevin Whately). Gerry and Sewell attempt to rob his house in revenge, but are nearly caught. When Gerry gets the tickets he is horrified to discover that they are for a Sunderland match. After failing to sell them, the two friends watch the match at the Stadium of Light
.
Gerry's father (Tim Healy) finds the family's new flat and steals all the money Gerry has accumulated. At an empty fairground, Gerry spots his sister Bridget, who is now a drug addict sleeping rough, but she disappears when he leaves to get some food. After Gemma breaks up with Jak the ice-hockey player, she becomes Sewell's girl-friend. The lads' shoplifting is shown on the TV show Crimestoppers
, and the thug who originally owned the dog spots it with Sewell. He finds and attacks him. The seemingly weak and mild-mannered Sewell floors him with a single blow on the neck. At the Newcastle United stadium, they briefly meet Alan Shearer and ask him to give them season tickets, but he just laughs. They steal a sports car, which turns out to be Shearer's. Looking at his CDs, Sewell is appalled by his musical tastes (Gabrielle
and Celine Dion
). Eventually they leave the car and go skinny dipping.
Sewell is delighted when Gemma reveals she is pregnant, but horrified when she goes back to her former fiancé. Sewell attacks him during an ice-hockey match and knocks him out, but is beaten up by his team mates. Gerry's mother becomes ill and is hospitalised. Gerry finds his drunken father who ignores his pleas for support. Having lost all their earnings. Sewell and Gerry decide on one last major crime - a bank robbery. The crime goes disastrously wrong and the lads end up under arrest. However, Gerry learns that his abusive father has been killed in a road accident. The friends are sentenced to 200 hours of community service. One old lady they work for allows them to watch Newcastle play from the balcony of her towerblock, which overlooks the stadium.
objected to the comic portrayal of the teenagers' crimes, saying that the film "confuses mischievous get-rich larks with downright irresponsibility".
The Encyclopedia of Sports Films sees the film as a departure from a common depiction of football fans as hooligans, emphasising the positive communal values of the game as "an escape from the violence and despair of their homes". Adrian J. Walsh and Richard Giulianotti point to a "subtext" in the film, linking the poverty and injustice in the lads' lives to the main motivation for the plot, which arises from the fact that "entry prices in what was once the people's game have become so high as to exclude many of the traditional fan base. The film reeks with a sense of basic injustice."
2000 in film
The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....
British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
comedy
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Mark Herman
Mark Herman
Mark Herman is an English film director and screenwriter best known for writing & directing the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas....
about two teenagers (Chris Beattie and Greg McLane) trying to get money, by any means necessary, in order to get season ticket
Season ticket
A season ticket is a ticket that grants privileges over a defined period of time.-Sport:In sport, a season ticket grants the holder access to all regular-season home games for one season without additional charges. The ticket usually offers a discounted price over purchasing a ticket for each of...
s for home games played by the FA Premier League
FA Premier League
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...
football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
team Newcastle United
Newcastle United F.C.
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since the merger...
.
It is based on the novel The Season Ticket by Jonathan Tulloch.
Other actors in the movie include Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd, OBE is an English comedian, actor, radio host and author, and an authority on the history of music hall entertainment.- Early life :...
, Charlie Hardwick
Charlie Hardwick
Claire Elizabeth Hardwick is an English actress well known for her part in ITV's Emmerdale as Val Pollard.-Acting career:...
, Tim Healy
Tim Healy (actor)
Timothy Malcolm Healy is an English actor. He is best known for playing Dennis Patterson in the television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He is married to the actress Denise Welch.-Career:...
, Kerry Ann Christiansen
Kerry Ann Christiansen
Kerry Ann Christiansen is a British actress who began her career in the popular British children’s TV series Byker Grove.After her character's tragic departure from the show, she went on to play Kim Cotton in the short lived ITV series Close & True which also starred Robson Green and Jamie Bell,...
and Kevin Whately
Kevin Whately
Kevin Whately is an English actor.Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and...
. There is also a cameo appearance by footballer Alan Shearer
Alan Shearer
Alan Shearer OBE, DL is a retired English footballer. He played as a striker in the top level of English league football for Southampton, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United and for the England national team...
, whose car the boys steal.
Title
The title is a GeordieGeordie
Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...
dialect expression. Pure or Purely simply means very, and Belter or Belta means great or good. Despite it being based in Newcastle Upon-Tyne and following Newcastle United F.C, the actors playing Gerry and Sewell are from Sunderland and the phrase "Purely Belter" as spoken in the film has a Mackem
Mackem
Mackem is a term that refers to the accent, dialect and people of the Wearside area, or more specifically Sunderland, a city in North East England. Spelling variations include "Mak'em", "Makem", and "Maccam".- Origin :...
(Sunderland dialect) aspect.
The phrase is spoken several times in the film, first by Sewell when he and Gerry go skinny dipping after stealing Shearer's car and later when they dream of the freedom they will have when they get money.
Plot
The events take place over a year, the film being divided into four sections named from the four seasons.Sewell and Gerry, football-mad teenagers from broken families in Gateshead, break into Newcastle United's St James' Park
St James' Park
St James' Park, known for sponsorship reasons as the Sports Direct Arena, is an all-seater stadium in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the home of Newcastle United Football Club and is the sixth largest football stadium in the United Kingdom with a capacity of between 52,387 and 52,409.St James'...
stadium and steal the "sacred" turf from the penalty spot. After this success, they dream of earning money to get season tickets, with aid from their guardian angel, the Angel of the North
Angel of the North
The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead,formerly County Durham, England.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, standing tall, with wings measuring across...
. For the two tickets they will need nearly a thousand pounds. After attempts to make money from collecting scrap and baby sitting, they eventually graduate to more criminal activities, including shoplifting and housebreaking. Gerry keeps the money they accummulate in a tin box at home.
Sewell, who lives with his permanently befuddled grandfather (Roy Hudd), adopts a dog who follows him after wandering away from his owner, a local thug. He also dreams of Gemma, a girl who is engaged to Zak, a muscular ice-hockey player for the "Whitley Bay Warriors". At home, Gerry lives with his sickly mother and sister Clare, who has a baby called "Sheara". They are separated from their violent father who has been sexually abusing Gerry's other sister Bridget, who has run away from home. When his father finds where they live and badly beats Gerry's mother, the family have to move to a secret location. Gerry is bribed by a social worker to attend school for two weeks after which he will get two free football tickets. At the school he is bullied by his teacher (Kevin Whately). Gerry and Sewell attempt to rob his house in revenge, but are nearly caught. When Gerry gets the tickets he is horrified to discover that they are for a Sunderland match. After failing to sell them, the two friends watch the match at the Stadium of Light
Stadium of Light
The Stadium of Light is an all-seater football stadium in Sunderland, England. With space for 49,000 spectators, the Stadium of Light has the fifth-largest capacity of any English football stadium. The stadium primarily hosts Sunderland A.F.C. matches...
.
Gerry's father (Tim Healy) finds the family's new flat and steals all the money Gerry has accumulated. At an empty fairground, Gerry spots his sister Bridget, who is now a drug addict sleeping rough, but she disappears when he leaves to get some food. After Gemma breaks up with Jak the ice-hockey player, she becomes Sewell's girl-friend. The lads' shoplifting is shown on the TV show Crimestoppers
Crimestoppers
Crime Stoppers or Crimestoppers is a program separate from the emergency telephone number system, that allows a member of the community to provide anonymous information about criminal activity. It thereby allows the person to provide crime solving assistance to the authorities without being...
, and the thug who originally owned the dog spots it with Sewell. He finds and attacks him. The seemingly weak and mild-mannered Sewell floors him with a single blow on the neck. At the Newcastle United stadium, they briefly meet Alan Shearer and ask him to give them season tickets, but he just laughs. They steal a sports car, which turns out to be Shearer's. Looking at his CDs, Sewell is appalled by his musical tastes (Gabrielle
Gabrielle (singer)
Louisa Gabrielle Bobb is a multi-platinum selling, BRIT Award winning English singer, who records under the name Gabrielle. Gabrielle began her career temping during the day and singing for free in London clubs at night...
and Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
). Eventually they leave the car and go skinny dipping.
Sewell is delighted when Gemma reveals she is pregnant, but horrified when she goes back to her former fiancé. Sewell attacks him during an ice-hockey match and knocks him out, but is beaten up by his team mates. Gerry's mother becomes ill and is hospitalised. Gerry finds his drunken father who ignores his pleas for support. Having lost all their earnings. Sewell and Gerry decide on one last major crime - a bank robbery. The crime goes disastrously wrong and the lads end up under arrest. However, Gerry learns that his abusive father has been killed in a road accident. The friends are sentenced to 200 hours of community service. One old lady they work for allows them to watch Newcastle play from the balcony of her towerblock, which overlooks the stadium.
Cast
- Chris Beattie - Gerry McCarten
- Greg McLane - Sewell
- Charlie Hardwick - Mrs McCarten
- Roy Hudd - Mr Sewell
- Tim Healy - Billy McCarten
- Keven Whately - Mr Caird
- Tracy Whitwell - Clare McCarten
- Kerry Ann Christiansen - Bridget McCarten
Critical response
Critic Robert Shail praised the film for its "toughness", saying that it has "enough grit" to depict the characters' lives "without condescension or recourse to easy solutions". In contrast, Jessica Winter in The Rough Guide to Film criticises Herman's fondness for "cloying" close-ups and "contrived melodramatic showdown[s]", saying that the film "probably didn't create many new converts to Herman's partly gritty, party feel-good socialist realist strain of filmmaking." Jason Solomons in The Mail on SundayThe Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
objected to the comic portrayal of the teenagers' crimes, saying that the film "confuses mischievous get-rich larks with downright irresponsibility".
The Encyclopedia of Sports Films sees the film as a departure from a common depiction of football fans as hooligans, emphasising the positive communal values of the game as "an escape from the violence and despair of their homes". Adrian J. Walsh and Richard Giulianotti point to a "subtext" in the film, linking the poverty and injustice in the lads' lives to the main motivation for the plot, which arises from the fact that "entry prices in what was once the people's game have become so high as to exclude many of the traditional fan base. The film reeks with a sense of basic injustice."