Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

DubyaHan The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

wespain This film looked mildly interesting on Netflix so we ordered it. The first serious problem? No sub-titles. Why, you ask, would someone need titles for an English-language movie? The accents, mate! I'd actually spent time in England and I could understand maybe 50% of the dialogue. The thick Northern English dialect was incomprehensible to my wife. This isn't the filmmaker's fault as much as a distributor releasing it on the cheap. But then again, as dreary as the film turned out to be I can't imagine it ever had much of an audience. The plot turns slowly around rail workers who had a nifty deal under British Rail, forced to adjust when the government got tired to subsidizing a state rail system and sold it off to private investors.

rogerdarlington Most movies are escapist, depicting a world and a lifestyle that are unknown to the viewer. We rarely see the working class - except as criminals - and there is virtually never a reference to trade unions. But British director Ken Loach makes utterly different films, as is well-evidenced here. Set in Yorkshire in the mid 1990s, this work looks at the impact of rail privatisation on a group of maintenance staff or 'navvies', forced to confront a new management style where in theory the customer comes first but in practice cost is the prime factor. Using an unknown cast, naturalistic dialogue and minimal plot, Loach presents us with something close to a documentary and we just know that it is not going to end well.

amberapple This film was very underseen in the USA, though many consider it one of Loach's finest. As a traveler who has seen firsthand what privatization is doing to the UK transportation system, this film struck me as grittily authentic. As with so many of his films, Loach chooses to address social ills by exploring their effects upon working class characters. But not every plot point has to do with the topic at hand, and that is why the films work well, because the narrative has a life of its own driven by these characters (most of them quite likable although flawed) that goes beyond its "message."

chris-726 but still excellent and required viewing if you're a commuter in the UK. A documentary aired in the UK on the same weekend as this revealed that some of Mrs Thatchers advisors wanted to rip up the UK's entire railway network (the oldest in the world) and turn the tracks into roads. The eventual distallation of this attitude to public transport is seen here. Fair, not preachey, very realistic and occasionally very funny. It reminded me of a UK tv drama of the 80's called "Boys From the Blackstuff" - which as you'll know if you've seen it is very high praise.