The Road of Excess: Matthew Pritchard’s raw and moving documentary

Ian Smith

When I started watching The Road of Excess, I expected a film about toxic masculinity. I must have missed something. Instead I found a film about love, friendship and a desperate longing to feel something — even if it’s pain. The story is about being an outsider as a man in Wales and the search to feel connected.

The feature documentary follows ex-Dirty Sanchez star Matthew Pritchard as he attempts to row the Atlantic — a challenge that echoes the madness of his MTV days but now with three different co-stars. But this isn’t a sudden leap. Since the chaos of Sanchez, Matt has channelled his extreme addictions into new kinds of discipline and obsession. He’s adopted a vegan lifestyle and found a second act as a chef and endurance athlete. This Atlantic dash isn’t a stunt — for the record, it’s 3,000 nautical miles over 52 days — no mean feat. It’s the next step in a long journey of self-discovery.

The film is also a raw and moving look at fame, addiction, and the search for meaning when you feel like an outsider.

I know that feeling. In my early years, I was vulnerable. An outsider from a harsh working-class background. Unlike Pritchard, I didn’t have a tribe of other misfits to crash into bins with, or to staple things to my genitals with to give me some sense of belonging. That loneliness put me more at risk. So much so, I tried to take my own life in my twenties.

Years later, together with another group of outsiders, I set up Helpu, the men’s mental health and suicide prevention initiative for Wales. Our motto “connection is protection” is not just an empty slogan, it’s a lived truth.

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In the UK 74% of all suicides are men. Shockingly in Wales these rates have been about 22% higher than England’s for over three decades. One issue is definitely disconnection — from community and from each other.  Research shows that strong social ties are powerful buffers against suicide and poor mental health. Connection and belonging really are everything.

The film shows Matt and the Sanchez boys had something worthwhile, in their own chaotic and imperfect connection.  As the story unfolds we see that behind the MTV whirlwind, the ultra-endurance and the macho bravado Matthew was a bullied, shy kid looking for an alter ego and a place to belong.

I once worked as a counsellor in the youth justice system in Wales, supporting lads who’d often grown up with abusive environments, only to be arrested themselves for “kicking off.”  Desperate for belonging, many of them find it in the dark corners of Discord and the ‘manosphere’ — where connection comes with a price: loyalty means hating someone else. When you grow up without safe ways to express fear, grief or tenderness, you look for catharsis wherever you can.

I think the Sanchez boys had something different despite snorting copious amounts of drugs and nailing their bits to furniture. They were acting out something ancient — a modern tribal ritual, filmed for MTV before “content creators” existed.

The Atlantic row is not another reckless prank (although the families of some of the rowers thought so), but is a test of resilience and trust. It’s physically tough and terrifying. The fact is that if someone isn’t rowing at any point the boat will drift way off course leaving them all extremely vulnerable. That’s the point – shared connection is protection. For Matt and his newly found misfits, it’s a return to the tribe. Of doing something painful together, not for laughs or likes, but for meaning. Whether it “works” or not is beside the point. The point is: they did it together. And in that shared struggle and connection, there is hope.

I think that is the real lesson for men in Wales. Not that they need to stop ‘being men’ — but that we need space and spaces to connect and be many things. Strong and scared. Soft and wild. Messy and loved. Because when the Atlantic row is over and the cameras stop rolling, the real risk isn’t a broken bone or a lost bet. It’s being alone.

The film has various connections to Wales including the director Jamie Jones and the cast Mathew Pritchard, Mike Locke and Lee Dainton. It was filmed in Cardiff, Port Talbot, Llandegfedd Lake, Guerrilla Skate Park Cyncoed, Cwmbrân and had funding from Ffilm Cymru Wales.

The Road of Excess is coming to cinemas across the UK from this month.

Ian Smith is the founder of Helpu, the men’s mental health and suicide prevention initiative for Wales. Ian Smith also works as writer/director whose work explores themes of masculinity and mental health—often drawing from his own lived experience. Find him and Helpu on Linktree and Instagram.

This article was commissioned by Film Hub Wales as part of its Made in Wales project, which celebrates films with Welsh connections, thanks to funding from Creative Wales and the National Lottery via the BFI.