Cast: Conor McCarron, Joe Szula, Mhairi Anderson, Gary Milligan, John Joe Hay
John McGill is a diamond-in-the-rough, a studious youngster with academic potential buried deep in Glasgow’s wallowing and futile projects. The hope, of course, is that such a talented youngster could be plucked from obscurity – perhaps by some needy philanthropist or do-gooder civil servant. But this is Britain, and the child is left to tumble hopelessly into the depraved world of gangsters, scars and cheap liquor that has swallowed previous generations of Glaswegian delinquents. When a local gang discovers that John is the younger brother of an infamous local thug, they invite him to join their ranks. John slips easily into this new lifestyle of territorial knife fights and school absence. But can he scramble back towards the light before it is too late?
Peter Mullan is a superb Scottish actor, and fast becoming one of the country’s most accomplished filmmakers. This film’s tangible realism may not quite hold up to comparisons with Ken Loach, but there are certainly similarities to the punch-drunk world-weary anger of Alan Clarke; and the film is cut through with a troubling fantasy element that Lindsay Anderson would not have frowned at.
John McGill is a diamond-in-the-rough, a studious youngster with academic potential buried deep in Glasgow’s wallowing and futile projects. The hope, of course, is that such a talented youngster could be plucked from obscurity – perhaps by some needy philanthropist or do-gooder civil servant. But this is Britain, and the child is left to tumble hopelessly into the depraved world of gangsters, scars and cheap liquor that has swallowed previous generations of Glaswegian delinquents. When a local gang discovers that John is the younger brother of an infamous local thug, they invite him to join their ranks. John slips easily into this new lifestyle of territorial knife fights and school absence. But can he scramble back towards the light before it is too late?
Peter Mullan is a superb Scottish actor, and fast becoming one of the country’s most accomplished filmmakers. This film’s tangible realism may not quite hold up to comparisons with Ken Loach, but there are certainly similarities to the punch-drunk world-weary anger of Alan Clarke; and the film is cut through with a troubling fantasy element that Lindsay Anderson would not have frowned at.
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