Art Vandelay After the p-rnographic opening sequence there are about 15 minutes of compelling 70s British crime drama. Then Fox goes on the run and the whole movie swirls irretrievably into the toilet. There's more p-rn, this time with Anita Pallenberg looking like she's strung out on heroin. There's a boy(?) in a dress or is that just a fat ugly girl? There's Mick Jagger looking as pale as death. I can't be the only one on Earth who thinks this - isn't he about the ugliest human being not named Carrot Top or Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)? What a mess. Roeg must have consumed a metric tonne of drugs in his day to have churned out movie after movie after movie of self-indulgent, p- rnographic drivel.

xmaskal We watched this last night. My partner has been waxing lyrical about this films for as long as we've been together. i've always been fairly resistant to be honest - I've always enjoyed listening to the Stones, but never really got 'The Stones'. As far as I was concerned they are rock legends, sure but that's about the size of it. Their really great mid sixties stuff was contemporary Waaaaay before my time. I really didn't get the whole Stones mystique. Well, I can say I now get it. Wow do I! I can't say I've ever been a massive believer in the 'Mick Jagger Sex God' hype. But I can see why he had the rep he did - So dark and alluring and dangerously different. This film has certainly opened my eyes up to a whole new world ... I'm really looking forward to re-listening to their albums with this new world view.

steven jones Have been a huge fan of this movie since I first saw it about 30 years ago. It captures the mayhem of the time and brings together a Brit gangster movie with the psychedelic world of reclusive, faded rock star chic. I simply love everything about this film; James Fox is magnificent as a sadistic on the run gangster and Jagger does what he does best to a sizzling soundtrack of period music. So many firsts here... from the Moog synthesiser, the mixture of genres, its use of imagery, is that the first rap song? .. and more. The ending is a little confused but the whole thing is a feast for the senses, you can't guess what will happen next. They dared to try out lots of new ideas and combine many different styles.. it really works and defies categorisation to this day.. a masterpiece!

tieman64 James Fox plays Chas, a East London gangster who delights in sadism, sex, misogyny and violence. He works for Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon), whose orders he disobeys by murdering a low life called Joey Maddocks. Chas is forced to go on the run, the police and Flowers' henchmen hot on his heels. The film is concerned with Chas' chameleon like transformation, as he alters himself in an attempt to remain off the radar. In this regard he dyes his hear, changes his mannerisms and ingratiates himself with the androgynous Turner, played by Rolling Stones front-man Mick Jagger. "I'm determined to fit in. I've got to fit in," he begs, and Jagger obliges, introducing Chas to hallucinogenic drugs, homosexuality, femininity and his fuzzy concepts of "love". End result: Chas drops his previous psycho-sexual, violent, dominative, masculine hangups and becomes a happy drag queen. Think of Jagger as an X rated Deepak Chopra. The film was directed by Nicolas Roeg, whose customarily unconventional editing techniques elevate the film tremendously. Roeg turns the plot into a kaleidoscopic, hallucinogenic identity crisis ("I know who I am," Chas unconvincingly repeats throughout the film), using a non linear, sliding, elliptical editing style to suggest the breaking down and piecing together of Chas' identity. For Roeg, the goal is for anima and animus to collide through technique. His shots are like the drug tainted fragments of a vast mosaic, the final image fuzzy and confusing at first, until each new added piece completes and concretizes the picture. Roeg's editing was breathtaking during this period, culminating in such great films as "Walkabout" and "Don't Look Now". The film ends with Chas transforming into Turner and vice versa, the former adopting a wig, costume and makeup. Chas' face even literally becomes Turner's and Roeg goes so far as to use mirrors and subtle shots to overlay female breasts on Chas' own chest, blurring his psycho-sexual identity. Actor James Fox found the production so disturbing and disorienting that he left acting and fled into religious retreat for nearly a decade. Mick Jagger went on to become a giant sex God.7.9/10 – Hugely influential, but somewhat dated. How do you rate a film that plays like a cross between Guy Ritchie and Catherine Breillat? Incidentally, Roeg's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" presents the flip-side of Chas' transformation, musician David Bowie transforming from androgynous, sexless rock star, to phallus incarnate.