What has
happened to Ken Loach? This is a man
known for his depressing films about the working class in the U.K and all of
their suffering, so what is he doing making a film that is a combination of
comedy and heist? Has the man gone soft
in his old age? I doubt it, but it is
nice to see him exploring the lighter side of life in his impressive new film
“The Angels' Share”.
New
father Robbie is on his last chance, both with the law and his girlfriend. If he messes up once more, he will be left
with nothing and sent to prison. Knowing
the consequences are dire if he doesn’t change, Robbie vows to turn over a new
leaf and become a better man and father to his young son. While performing various tasks to complete
his community service hours given to him for punishment of a crime, he meets
Harry who is like a caretaker for the people doing community service. In Harry, Robbie finds a mentor in his new
life, someone to look up to, and the first person to ever give him another
chance. Through his friendship with
Harry he starts to become involved in appreciating whiskeys and finds out that
he actually has a very sensitive nose and is great a differentiating between
different types. One day while out on a
trip to a whiskey tasting with Harry, along with his friends he has made while
doing community service, they hear about an extremely rare cask of whiskey that
is about to be auctioned. Hearing that
the cask itself would command well over a million pounds, Robbie and his mates
decide they are going to steal the whiskey, and set themselves up for life.
I am not
the biggest Ken Loach fan, I will admit, so I wasn’t really looking forward to
this film too much. His films are
usually too depressing and he often spotlights ugly (via their actions not
appearance) characters in the lead. “The
Angels' Share” had me from its hilarious opening scene at the train
station. Right from this moment, I knew
I was going to enjoy the film and I was immediately surprised by how funny it
was with just one scene. Do not panic all
you Loach fans, he hasn’t totally abandoned his social commentary on how bad it
is in the U.K because there is a far patch in the middle of “The Angels' Share”
which acts more like a traditional drama.
In this section Robbie fears about being able to leave his past life
behind because no matter how much he wants to, his past and the people in it
refuse to let him go. It is actually
pretty powerful as we feel Robbie’s despair and worry, like himself, that he
actually wont be able to get out of this life.
The film
also has a lot of heart in it which is shown mainly through the character of
Harry, a man who is willing to give someone a second chance. John Henshaw’s performance is fantastic as he
plays him as a quiet man who likes the small things in life, and you can see
him actually enjoying Robbie’s company and their shared passion, after being
initially cautious of him. There is a
fantastic moment at the end of the film when Robbie pays Harry back for all of
the faith he had in him. It is such a
touching moment and you can feel that Harry is both proud and touched by the
gesture.
Paul
Brannigan, who plays Robbie, brings a real weight and believability to the
role, you can tell that he is now in this for the long haul for the sake of his
new family, but at the same time you can see the fear in his eyes that he wont
be able to live up to his promise.
Brannigan brings a likability to the role as well so it is easy to root
for him and hope that everything goes right.
During the film we get a flashback to the kind of person Robbie used to
be, and again, Brannigan makes it so believable, he turns into a vicious animal
with crazy in his eyes. You can see why
he has been in so much trouble and just how much he has to do to turn around
his life.
The rest
of the cast, Robbie’s friends from community service, are all great too. They are all given individual personalities,
both good and bad, but we care for them all.
A special mention must go to Gary Maitland who plays the seriously dumb
Albert and is the main core of the comedy in the film. He is just hilarious throughout (obviously a
lot of credit must go to Paul Laverty’s sharp script too), but besides him
there are a lot of funny set-pieces including one that involves a spit bucket
during a tasting, and another with a motorbike suffering from a case of
mistaken identity.
Overall,
I was very pleasantly surprised by “The Angels' Share” (which is what the 2% of
whiskey that evaporates out of a cask per year is referred as) by its humour,
heart and uplifting drama, it was definitely unlike the normal Ken Loach film
but quite brilliant none the less. The
only issue I really had with the film is the strong accents throughout. Normally after a few minutes of a film my ear
gets attuned to most accents, but there were times throughout “The Angels'
Share” that I struggled to understand exactly what was being said. I suppose in the end it didn’t really affect
my enjoyment of the film very much at all because I thought “The Angels' Share”
was a little gem.
3.5 Stars.
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