Robbie, a young man on a community payback scheme trying to turn his life around for the sake of his newborn son, comes up with a plan to give him a financial head start. He recruits his fellow offenders to his caper.
The Glasgow-set collaborations of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty always sit somewhere on a spectrum that runs between socialist realist politics and crowd-pleasing mischief. This outing sits more towards the crowd-pleasing end. As such, the young protagonist's underclass credentials are evidenced merely by his scars, tracksuit and chest-puffing in the face of his adversaries. His partner only ever speaks to him about pulling up his socks for their child; stilted, clunky exchanges that supply information and do nothing for characterisation. The young woman's thuggish family are cardboard cut-out neds who speak in clichés. So, characterisation is simplistic and dialogue always pure exposition. However, anyone looking for some pay off in the plot will be sorely disappointed. It is pretty obvious from the beginning how things will play out, with the exception of one genuinely surprising, and humanistic, twist. At one point Robbie is being chased by bad guys when his father-in-law incredulously appears like Batman in his Nedmobile to rescue him, before snarling more ned clichés at him.
Paul Brannigan as Robbie has a certain look and charisma, but he can't act. The young actor's story, in many respects paralleling the character he plays, is touching, and perhaps Loach and Laverty are using cinema to smuggle in some kind of social rehabilitation programme for worthy but underprivileged young men. But one part of me wishes they'd use real actors, or at least send their discoveries to acting school before filming starts.
As someone who grew up in inner-city Glasgow I always feel I *should* like these Loach/Laverty films, and wonder if my conflicted emotions come from the part of me that is Glasgow. But 'The Angel's Share' has made up my mind for me - these films are just below-par cinema. I get that the script is meant to be a fable, but not one line of dialogue stayed with me, or resonated to a deeper place. The characters, like those in 'My Name is Joe', are all meant to be lovable rapscallions, but the visceral violence that can be a very real event in Glasgow is not represented here, and the truly pitiful aspects of these young men's pathetic and self-destructive delusions about 'masculinity' require a complexity of portrayal that seems beyond these filmmakers. There is a psychology and dialectic at work that defies easy ideological explanation, but that ease is all Loach and Laverty ever reach for. Loach's so-called naturalistic directing is simply workmanlike camera-work that fails to add shade or depth to character. I can't think of one shot in this film that struck me as cinematic.
I applaud the good intentions of Loach and Laverty, but their execution is sorely lacking. I think the praise they garner comes more from the middle class guilt of broadsheet critics, and the desperate relief of disenfranchised Glaswegians at ANY attempt at all to portray their lives on screen. Wooden acting, under-realised framing, and a flat, under-developed script - apart from a few chuckles at comments by dim-witted characters, what exactly is there to like here? What is this film doing that was not done by Bill Forsyth 30 years ago, only ten times better? These filmmakers need to be judged by the same standards that apply to the likes of Kevin Macdonald, Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan. Glasgow is a great city that lends itself to cinema, and its people have a myriad of human tales to tell. It is a potential criminally untapped by Loach and Laverty.
The Glasgow-set collaborations of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty always sit somewhere on a spectrum that runs between socialist realist politics and crowd-pleasing mischief. This outing sits more towards the crowd-pleasing end. As such, the young protagonist's underclass credentials are evidenced merely by his scars, tracksuit and chest-puffing in the face of his adversaries. His partner only ever speaks to him about pulling up his socks for their child; stilted, clunky exchanges that supply information and do nothing for characterisation. The young woman's thuggish family are cardboard cut-out neds who speak in clichés. So, characterisation is simplistic and dialogue always pure exposition. However, anyone looking for some pay off in the plot will be sorely disappointed. It is pretty obvious from the beginning how things will play out, with the exception of one genuinely surprising, and humanistic, twist. At one point Robbie is being chased by bad guys when his father-in-law incredulously appears like Batman in his Nedmobile to rescue him, before snarling more ned clichés at him.
Paul Brannigan as Robbie has a certain look and charisma, but he can't act. The young actor's story, in many respects paralleling the character he plays, is touching, and perhaps Loach and Laverty are using cinema to smuggle in some kind of social rehabilitation programme for worthy but underprivileged young men. But one part of me wishes they'd use real actors, or at least send their discoveries to acting school before filming starts.
As someone who grew up in inner-city Glasgow I always feel I *should* like these Loach/Laverty films, and wonder if my conflicted emotions come from the part of me that is Glasgow. But 'The Angel's Share' has made up my mind for me - these films are just below-par cinema. I get that the script is meant to be a fable, but not one line of dialogue stayed with me, or resonated to a deeper place. The characters, like those in 'My Name is Joe', are all meant to be lovable rapscallions, but the visceral violence that can be a very real event in Glasgow is not represented here, and the truly pitiful aspects of these young men's pathetic and self-destructive delusions about 'masculinity' require a complexity of portrayal that seems beyond these filmmakers. There is a psychology and dialectic at work that defies easy ideological explanation, but that ease is all Loach and Laverty ever reach for. Loach's so-called naturalistic directing is simply workmanlike camera-work that fails to add shade or depth to character. I can't think of one shot in this film that struck me as cinematic.
I applaud the good intentions of Loach and Laverty, but their execution is sorely lacking. I think the praise they garner comes more from the middle class guilt of broadsheet critics, and the desperate relief of disenfranchised Glaswegians at ANY attempt at all to portray their lives on screen. Wooden acting, under-realised framing, and a flat, under-developed script - apart from a few chuckles at comments by dim-witted characters, what exactly is there to like here? What is this film doing that was not done by Bill Forsyth 30 years ago, only ten times better? These filmmakers need to be judged by the same standards that apply to the likes of Kevin Macdonald, Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan. Glasgow is a great city that lends itself to cinema, and its people have a myriad of human tales to tell. It is a potential criminally untapped by Loach and Laverty.