UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

alexanderbpm i was looking forward to watching this film as the age group of the main characters where about the same age as myself(age 12 in 1974).i am also from glasgow. there are so many things that peter mullan has got wrong from this period, the use of words like bawbag and quality are patter from a latter era, i never seen a teacher smoke in class or address pupils with a fag in their mouth, one man operated buses where not in use at this time and the smoking of joints on the playground just did not exist. i don't know if peter mullan was trying to bring modern street slang and current drug use to cater for the modern viewer but it just came across as lazy research for that time and was very offputting. i am a big fan of mullan but there was no character in the film you could care for,from the start i was trying to work out what relation the girl who went to America? was (checked credits, it was his aunty)the brother went to spain?and in the space of 6 weeks he went from swot to thug. so much of the story line tried to be profound but was just messy and nonsense. i paid £3 in the supermarket for this, watched the film, then put it in the bin.

Jackson Booth-Millard There was positive discussion of this British film on Film 2010 with Claudia Winkleman, and it looked like a good mix of This Is England and something like (a more understandable) Sweet Sixteen, so of course I wanted to see it, from director Peter Mullan. Basically, set in 1970's Glasgow, Neds (Non-Educated Delinquents) are roaming the streets, and school boy, ten year old John McGill (Greg Forrest) has been surrounded by it for some time, but ignores it to do well in his studies. After a very good academic career, fourteen year old John McGill (Conor McCarron) is ready to start secondary school, but with a dysfunctional family consisting of a drunken and violent father (Peter Mullan), troubled mother Theresa (Louise Goodall) and brother Benny (Joe Szula) constantly getting into trouble with the police, dark clouds appear in his personality. He makes friends with Julian (Martin Bell) and hanging out with the wrong crowd, John transcends into the Neds territory as he talks back to teachers and isn't bothered about punishment, and of course going against other young street thugs. Also starring John Joe Hay as Fergie, Gary Lewis as Mr. Russell, Mhairi Anderson as Elizabeth, Richard Mack as Gerr, Gary Milligan as Canta, Christopher Wallace as Wee T, Marianna Palka as Aunt Beth, Steven Robertson as Mr. Bonetti, David McKay as Mr. Holmes and Linda Cuthbert as Mrs. Matherson. I agree with the critics that it loses some grip towards the end, but all the actors, most of which are newcomers, especially McCarron and his younger self Forrest are fantastic, the realism in parts with the violence and school punishment makes for good viewing, an interesting coming-of-age drama. Worth watching!

andrew_clayton Set in Scotland in the 1970s, the film centres on a promising young Scottish boys initial advancement through secondary school followed by an unrealistic regression in to a border line psychopath who has a "canny" grasp for Latin. He returns to school after a 6 week summer break more like a pre-borstal Scotish version of Carling (Ray Winstone) from Scum. Quite unbelievable that 6 weeks is all it takes for him to turn to the dark side. On a plus note the acting was solid and I suppose if you were born and bred within that particular environment then the film would have more resonance. Bleak with a heavy dose of realism, this film does not sugar coat life in the Glasgow ghetto.

kaattakilla It looked good and was a fun watch, even if I couldn't find subtitles. The shift from good to bad was great but the struggle back seemed rushed and incomplete.To be perfectly honest, I believe the struggle of trying to put that old lifestyle behind would have left a much larger impact on me as I walk away from having seen this film. I don't think that showing the darker side of the violence and gangs would have been lost if it had taken half the time it did.7/10 is a little generous but in the end. I was entertained.I think I said what I needed to say but sadly I cant submit this without a certain number of sentences. It seems slightly ridiculous to me that I need to be forced to add text after saying what I came to say. Sad to think that fluff needs to be added to meet a length quota, I'm sure there is something to be said about this and the extra fluff in a lot of today's cinema as well.