The movie's impersonal, conventional telling of a reasonably standard male coming-of-age story almost tends to make the punk milieu it depicts beside the point.
For all its flaws, the film's underlying sweetness makes it hard to dislike. Good, too, to see punk icon Joe Strummer - played with bolshie vim by Jonathan Rhys Meyers - as the story's unexpected fairy godfather.
As contrived as "London Town" is - with a derivative coming-of-age story and improbable, fateful encounters between a struggling teen and Clash frontman Joe Strummer - there is something here of the group's early, principled spirit.
It's hard not to enjoy London Town for its mixture of bittersweet comedy-drama, excellent performances, and the use of several of the Clash's best songs of the era. A little bit of hokum in a rock & roll story isn't a bad thing at all.
The raw vigor and protest of punk get co-opted by the movie's coming-of-age story; it's not the heartfelt sweetness that's the chief problem, but how run-of-the-mill and derivative the plot is.
The era's skinhead riots and striking workers - and Strummer's biting, pro-immigrant lyrics - are never more than window dressing in a movie that would rather scatter fairy dust than grit.
The story of the Clash is a fascinating one, and spotlighting a kid inspired by, but not a part of, the punk milieu has plenty of potential. But "London Town" just never burns brightly enough.
