Riff-Raff

This unpretentious British indie film is a rough diamond in the rough. It chronicles the lives of a handful of blue collar workers trying to survive in early 90's London. It's almost documentary in style and narrative, which lends a feeling of authenticity, which is helped also by fine performances all around. Shows the humor, frustration and dashed dreams in an unforgiving society, and it has heart. It is at times funny, heart wrenching, and touching. The accents are thick, so you may appreciate the subtitles that are on some versions. I found them distracting, so I put some tape over the bottom of the screen. I had to strain a few times to understand, but I don't think the subtitles were necessary. Well worth a watch.

I've always been astonished by Ken Loach's ability to make me forget that these are actors that I'm watching, or that this is a movie on a set, etc. The characters in this film are so real, so lifelike, that it was almost like watching a documentary. The film very wisely employs subtitles for the English dialogue, much or most of which would be unintelligible to an American audience.

Several of the reviews I have read of this film call it a comedy. Well, although there are one or two comic scenes, to me this is far from a comedy. This is a bitter and biting howl of rage against the plight of the working class in the UK. These men are used and exploited by their employers. There is no doubt that these construction sites would be cited for safety violations, or even closed down, if they were in the USA. and the owner-managers might well be prosecuted, since their willful negligence ultimately results in a death. What is lacking in the British working class, if this film is any guide, is any sense of upward mobility, any hope, any sense that I can make it out of this and find a better life. The one exception to this is the protagonist's girl friend, who is a monumentally untalented aspiring singer, and in her case we don't feel that there is much hope either.

Riff-Raff is so realistic in its depiction of British working class conditions in the building industry of the time. Hard working lads living hard lives making poor money and working for shifty cost cutting employers. More than that though, Loach has filled the story with believable characters and has them speaking realistically with real local accents and absolutely zero political correctness.

Hats off to whoever was in charge of the casting. Standout performances from Robert Carlyle and Ricky Tomlinson but to be fair the entire cast were believable in their roles. There's very authentic feel to the film, almost like watching a documentary instead. Criminally Underrated.

Well what can I say? this film is appalling, the acting is putrid(particularly the Irish character who appears to forget her characters role mid way through the film) apart from Robert Carlyle as the Scottish character is quite good among other smaller big name roles who then made a name for themselves either prior or afterwards otherwise this movie is terrible with major plot-points not being revealed, unnecessary scenes, bad gags and bad script-writing as if they just improvised. Besides to that it was wrote in memory of some one if this was made in tribute of me, I must have really been hated or a terrible script- writer if this was the fruit of my labour! All in all I think my review is suitable for a film of this caliber Q.E.D

Riff-Raff is a film that didn't particularly knock my socks off in any technical way, but still somehow achieved its own sort of excellence. It doesn't seem like your conventional movie, but rather, like a vignette of the life of its main characters. It feels more real than almost any other film I've seen, possibly a byproduct of its screenwriter being an actual construction worker. The film it pulls you in and makes the characters feel like old friends, without a particularly exciting or thrilling plot, in a way it's reminiscent of Chekhov. And though the characters have their ups and downs, the movie presents quite a few chuckles. A thoroughly intelligent and genuine film, brimming with social commentary without bashing you over the head with it.