Rag Tale

This had to be turned off after about 15 minutes. It is easily the worst shot thing ever. If you want a masterclass in generation tension without moving the camera, check out The Collingswood Story. If you want a masterclass in HOW NOT TO MAKE A FILM, watch this sh*t. Rupert Graves is pathetic as some sort of Pier Morgan character - about as intimidating as a dead moth. Truly poor, feeble effort. The director should be shot, and so should everyone else involved for not telling her this was a bad style to adopt. I purchased this dung from Blockbutser for 1.99. It wasn't worth 0.01p. You want to see this sort of thing done well - improvised script, floating camera, and so on - see Festival or One for the Road. This joins Confetti in the 'bin' list. Get lost, the lot of you

If this is meant to be a fly on the wall appreciation of a newsroom it is hard to imagine that flies can stick to walls, rather than fall to the floor suffering from some severe form of motion sickness. I could barely watch 24 minutes of this picture, as my head was spinning out of control. If I had watched it any further I may have ended with my face in the toilet bowl.

Yes this movie is quite unconventional in it's use of short shots, and rapid edits. But its lack of convention adds to its almost complete lack of veiwability (I may have invented that word). I do not know why someone would revert to a nauseating MTV style of editing with such a subject. Some reviewers here have said it adds to the fly on the wall experience. But flies on a wall have one perspective, because they are sitting still on a wall.

A sense of pace can be portrayed by other means. Such as using shots that last for more than two seconds depicting people moving frenetically, and exploiting these actors' abilities to show stress, see Broadcast News. I can't imagine this would be too much of a stretch for the cast in this pic.

It is a pity that many of the audience would not be able to watch this movie given the stellar cast and subject matter. JJL is one of my all time faves, and I was quite disappointed that I could not see more than 23 minutes and 55 seconds of this pic. I watched this movie on DVD, and I've never asked for money back; but on this occasion I shall.

If you want to have a good time that results in you being very sick at the end of the night, I recommend a night at the pub. This movie does not provide you with a good time.

0.5/10 Unfortunately IMDb doesn't allow for a 0.5 rating.

This is a shame. Great cast (why aren't these people on our screens all the time?), completely wasted. The direction in this movie is the worst I've ever had the misfortune to see - the camera is constantly moving, often rotating round so actors are at angles, or zooming. Combined with extremely quick editing, it makes it difficult to tell which actor is which, let alone what their facial expressions are. This would be excusable perhaps if an inexperienced director tried it for one scene, but it's the entire movie. I suppose the attempt is to convey the pressure and fast pace of a newsroom: instead, it conveyed to me a headache (a good director would allow the actors to do some of the conveying emotion: the direction more or less screams look at me in every scene, to the extent the participant I was most aware of was the camera).

Putting aside the direction, the improvised script does not produce a comedy. The cast do a good job of conveying some relationships between the group, some amusing, but really asking them to improvise a script of one liners in a few weeks was always insane and this really could have used a decent scriptwriter. The audience I was in laughed twice. The original concept isn't bad, the cast try hard and are good, but the director never gives them the chance to salvage this. Avoid.

Set during the momentous U.S. election week of 2004, this satirical story follows the editor of The Rag (Graves) – a London newspaper - as he embarks upon an affair with the Chairman's wife (Leigh) and follows him as he tries to save his job over the course of the week.

With subtle side-swipes at the establishment, this film delves into the seedy underworld of tabloid journalism. Improvised performances from an established ensemble cast helps RAG TALE create a realistic world inhabited by ruthless, back-stabbing hacks, intent on their own advancement.

The frantic pace of a news room is conveyed by the editing style, which features many more cuts than usual, and with hardly a still moment, the camera flits effortlessly between HD and mini-DV, creating the type of realism you would associate with a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The stunning visuals of the film are complimented by an energetic score and exploratory sound-design. This is heightened by the improvised dialogue and sense of inter-character relationships that build from the start to their shocking conclusion.

More cutting and experimental than television shows which attempt to cover similar ground, RAG TALE convinces us that what we read in the newspapers is very often manufactured by an elite group of people who care more about themselves than correctly reporting the news.

A film for the younger audience, this is one that will leave you thinking.

Here is an all star UK, USA cast all at sea with a great fun idea ruined due to the fact that the camera can't keep still and a director who does not rely on a witty script and the good actors she has.The other problem is that films that deal with that days new's forget that very shortly afterwards or in my case 5 years later, it was bought in a boot sale, very few will remember any of the names and news of that time. A subplot of the editor screwing the chairman's wife is fun but does not go anywhere so one is left with very little. This, despite it's star cast, failed to do any box office here in the UK and most of it would be lost on a USA audience. An all round sad flop that could of been really fun.