Small Faces

Small Faces stands out as an unsentimental and unpatronising glimpse of the life of 1960s working class youth in Glasgow. The film is directed with a light touch and brilliantly conveys the experience of growing up in the slums with the stereotypical escape-routes of gangs, drink and education. In refusing to romanticise its subject matter the film is bleak, funny, brutal and life-affirming all at the same time.

In late-1960s Glasgow, three teenage brothers from a fatherless home in a lower working class neighborhood struggle to survive among the chaos and violence that is part of their subculture. The oldest has serious mental problems and a learning disability associated with his acting out. The middle brother tries to steer clear of it all as he struggles to pursue his artistic talent. And the story is told from the viewpoint of Lex, the 13-year-old, whose childish delinquency becomes serious business when he is forced into adult situations. At the beginning I had difficulty with the heavy Scottish dialect and had some confusion of characters and events, but I was drawn in by the progression of events and the development of the characters. This is a poignant coming-of-age story that rewards us if we stay with it.

Life in the tough end of Glasgow in the late 1960s is delightfully and sometimes painfully presented here. This is clearly a work of well-observed autobiography by the Mackinnon family - Billy the writer/producer and Gillies the director.

At the centre of the film is the Maclean family - widowed mother with sons Bobby (none too bright), Alan (budding artist in spite of being brought up in the tough end of Govan) and narrator Lex, only 13 and still not sure what life is all about. Iain Robertson's performance as Lex is so good that it is barely credible that he has not reappeared in anything more worthy of his acting talent.

The film sets up a series of oppositions - gangs (Glens versus Tongs); romantic family life vs tough and unromantic street life; loyalty vs betrayal. Far from resulting in simplification, this actually makes the life of young Lex even more complex as he is, sequentially, drawn to each aspect of these opposing ideas.

Director Gillies shows he knows how to film his environment and gives us telling and memorable images - such as a huge close-up of blood running down a plug-hole that looks like some work of abstract art.

Nowhere near as clichéd as most coming-of-age movies, this is a joy for teenagers and adults alike.

SMALL FACES is a Scottish film set in Glasgow during the late 1960s and follows the lives of three brothers from the Maclean family : Bobby a member of the Glen Gang , Alan who has ambitions of going to art school and Lex a thirteen year old boy and like the character of Taylor in PLATOON where the main character finds himself being split between the violent pragmatism of Barnes and the humanity of Elias young Lex is split between what brother makes the better role model

It's a complex tale that is character driven which explains why none of the comments on this page has really gone in to the plot details and if you're expecting a violent tale with youths slashing each other with razors every five minutes then you'll be disappointed . There is violence of course and some people may bleat that it lives up to the " Glesga keelie " stereotype but I disagree and it's interesting to note that the traditional battle lines of Glasgow gangs being drawn from their ethnic background ( Irish Catholic and Scottish Protestants ) is never discussed .

Despite having a small budget director Gillies MacKinnon makes the most of what he's got and watch the scenes where characters view Tongland ( Is it the notorious Gorbals ? ) which resembles a bleak alien city . The cast are uniformly excellent with veterans like Clare Higgins and Ian McElhinney appearing alongside up and coming Scottish actors like Kevin McKidd and Laura Fraser but the two best performances are by Iain Robertson as Lex and Garry Sweeney as gang leader Charlie Sloan which is just as well since most of the movie rests or falls on these two characters , though strangely neither young actor has gone on to have a sparkling career which is a pity

Without a doubt one of the finest gang/youth films ever! I know several guys who grew up in Glasgow in the 1960's and I'll never look at them the same way again, (And, I thought that the gang members in Boyz N' the Hood were tough... They have nothing on Charlie Sloan and the boys: "Glen ya' Bass!"). The only down side to the film is that I had to watch it with the close captioning on, because I their accents were too strong for me to follow. Anyway, a fantastic effort + a must see! Some other IMDb patron said: "I wish I could make the whole world see this movie" - I myself can't put it better than that.