The Reckoning

A real taste of 70s Britain here, social injustice, poverty, and social climbing all brought together with the Irish Liverpool way, Get Carter would be a reference but in a way this brilliant movie is different, yes it is a revenge Northern movie but it has so much more to offer, if you grew up in an Irish household in England then you would really relate to some of this movie.Try it out you won't be disappointed I give this 9/10

Thanks t Talking Pictures TV I've just caught this little gem of a film which features a superb performance by Nicol Williamson. He really was one of the most talented and underrated British performers. This comes on the back of his stunning Hamlet the previous year, thank goodness that performance was committed to film. Well worth seeking out. Great Geoffrey Unsworth cinematography and an admirable supporting cast.

I am in complete agreement with dan-filson-928-874987: THE RECKONING (which could almost be called a lost film now)is a powerful drama with a bravura performance by Nicol Williamson at its heart. Williamson specialised in being hard to like: he relished the negative attributes of every character he played. His performances tend to be quite broad, but the complete absence of sentimentality keeps them fresh. In THE RECKONING director Jack Gold keeps theatricality at bay. The powerful ending described by dan-filson-928-874987 is a fresh memory for me even after 40 years. Yes, there are similarities to GET CARTER: but CARTER is a genre picture, and THE RECKONING is a character drama. Both films are highly accomplished, but comparing them doesn't really shed much light on either, in my opinion. Time for Columbia or the BFI to get hold of a master and issue this on DVD.

50 years ago anti-heroes sold movies, though thankfully not this one. Audiences were delighted that there was no longer a required convention for villains to get caught, and directors exploited the new freedom to excess. This is a prime example of that excess. Our hero is a schizophrenic, one moment delighting in the rich mans trappings - flash car, large property in fashionable Surrey, wife with all the social graces, conventional senior management position in solid London based corporation, the next behaving like a football hooligan when he rediscovers his roots. His treatment of females is so despicable I'm not surprised that distributors wouldn't touch this film.

At the end I wished that I was back in the fifties and that he was the one due the reckoning. No such luck.

The film has some merit for the acting and camerawork but as entertainment it just left a nasty taste in the mouth.

A British drama; A story about a man who rises from a slum to the height of cut-throat big business in London. Returning home, and under the strain of his father's death he cracks and he begins to confront his demons. Based on Patrick Hall's novel, "The Harp that Once", a slice of British realism, the film is about a prodigal son returning home. It is an unflinching exploration of the British class system. Nicol Williamson gives a muscular performance showing self-pity and self-loathing and revenge, a man of few redeeming qualities. It's a film that avoids a debt to convention, but it says very little about the place of women in its character study. The fast editing creates a furious narrative pace but it is a touch too long.