You don't need to be into, or really know anything about, rave culture to enjoy 'Beats'. Sure, it explores the 90s rave scene in great detail, but at the end of the day this is a film about friendship that everybody can relate to thanks to realistically and compellingly written and performed characters. It tells the story of two teenage best friends, Johnno and Spanner, who try to attend an illegal rave and have the best night of their lives. It sounds simple and that's because it is, but that's hardly a bad thing. Its simple premise leads to a great exploration of many themes, including moving on, the class system, police brutality, and most importantly friendship. It achieves this especially well through the relationships and interactions between the characters, who are all well rounded. This leads to a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging experience that's very well crafted. Unfortunately, however, it's let down quite a bit by its third act. Here, the filmmaking takes quite a turn and goes from being extremely naturalistic to very formalistic in an attempt to show the characters' experience. This is a rather bizarre choice, and this segment goes on for far too long, actively breaking your immersion. I understand why the filmmakers chose to do this, but they must not have realised that they were saying much more and allowing the audience to empathise with the characters by simply showing things realistically. It's a testament to the writers and performers that this effect could have easily been achieved throughout the piece, but it's a real shame that they didn't have the confidence to see it through all the way to the end without trying to further force this upon the spectators. Thankfully though, the film's denouement is more in line with the rest of the piece than the majority of the third act and wraps things up rather satisfyingly, leaving you with a good lasting impression. Overall though, it's definitely worth checking out as the large majority of it heavily outweighs the rather disappointing third act. It certainly beats the majority of films from 2019. 7/10
