Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Console best movie i've ever seen.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

seivadch Many many years ago (late 80s) in a town near by I entered a record store and saw a sound track album by Mark Knopfler for a film called Cal.Recorded at the same time and place as mega hit album Brothers in Arms, in the same way as Private Investigations and Local Hero the 2 albums had been done concurrently. Cal (the Album) contains the music that was not used on BiA, for what ever reason, wrong Vibe, too much like, whatever it is Mark's intimate music at that time.Unlike Local Hero the film is a very sad, and much as I've tried to like it I cannot. Thankfully the cause of this story is now lost and hopefully forever. I wold recommend the Album to anyone, but the film to no one.

highwaytourist This story is truly a tragedy about Northern Ireland. The protagonist is Cal, a sensitive and aimless working-class Catholic youth in Ulster. Cal holds down various low-paying manual jobs during the day and at night, sometimes performs services for the Irish Republican Army, even though he's only a minor participant. In his most significant job, he becomes the getaway driver for the killer of a Protestant policeman, an assignment which upsets him greatly. A year later, he meets Marcella, a lonely, widowed librarian and becomes infatuated with her, and they drift into an affair. However, he learns to his horror that her late husband was the murdered policeman and can't bring himself to tell her. Meanwhile, both the law and the I.R.A. are beginning to close in on him. The film's intentions are good. It's an attempt to tell the story of ordinary people trapped in a place and time of political violence that damages everyone and everything around it, and forces people to make decisions that inevitably have tragic consequences. Unfortunately, there is too much tragedy, too much sadness, so much that it becomes hard to believe. The lead characters are a problem, too. The are weak and resigned people who can only evoke pity. You certainly cannot cheer them on like you could stronger people, the kinds of people who make good things happen for them. The result is tragedy overkill. Eventually, the viewer will also become resigned and glum.

wvisser-leusden 'Cal' deals with a subject that has been history for quite a long time by now: the violence in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Roman Catholics.Its plot is about a young Roman Catholic man who gets drawn in the terrorist IRA movement. He does not want that, but is too weak to resist. Of course, after having been involved in some violent acts, he cannot get out anymore. The tragedy is even more accentuated by a simultaneous love affair.This film just doesn't show any flaw. First of all, there is the magnificent acting of female lead Helen Mirren. Supported well by plenty of other good acting. The quality of the shooting. The bitter-sweet undertone of its tragic plot throughout its entire length. And, most of all, its setting against an Irish decor that was very actual in 1984.I happened to be in Dublin that year, and remember well the many sold-out performances of 'Cal' in the local cinema's. As well as the crowds of people queuing outside to get their tickets for the next show.

blacknorth A strangely and unhappily compelling film from the pen over the wildly over-rated Bernard MacLaverty. The script piles improbability on improbability but, given that its premise is so unlikely, perhaps that is the point, a kind of coincidental momentum of the poor and the bad.Helen Mirren doesn't fare too well as an RUC widow - there are many Irish actresses who could have suited and played this role much more convincingly. John Lynch is fine, looks the part, capturing something of the long-haired, unwashed aesthetic of the hunger-strikers of the time. The best performance is easily by Donal McCann as Lynch's Da, greasily working up a sweat at the local slaughterhouse. Ray McAnally is wasted in a small part.I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it's an interesting addition to the Troubles archive. Some fine photography and backdrops go a long way towards salvaging a rotten script.