Small Faces

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.

I caught this film late night on the Sundance channel. It is extraordinarily well done. It's good to see more and more cinema from the UK showing on cable here in the US.

Small Faces doesn't insult your intelligence, and it doesn't have any affectations. Its setting in the 60s is almost incidental; as someone else mentioned, there's no attempt here to glorify or overstate the setting for stylistic reasons.

And I must say, some of the camera-work is beautiful. One shot in particular stands out; Lex stands in a large vacant lot, puddles reflecting the sky, near the Tongs' apartment building. Something in this shot is alternately so deliberately composed for its "ugly beauty" and at the same time completely unpretentious and real and necessary. The kid who plays the lead, Iain Robertson, does an incredible job and seems almost an inorganic part of the urban wreckage around him.

No clichés. No insult to your intelligence. Just a story, well told, superbly acted, and superbly shot. This film is a textbook on how to make a good drama. Just one of many superb films from the UK (another recent good one was The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner) that we've been deprived of over here until now.

First rate.

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

If you see this in the TV listings, local videoshop, wherever, Get It! You will not find a more accurate movie that conveys the state of Glaswegian upbringing as it was and still is today. The violence, the course language and the way the young 'gangs' live and breathe on machismo and fights. The film shows an artist boy who is somewhat out of place in the world he finds himself living in. With his rather maniacal brother Bobby who just loves to go and fight the 'TONGS'. There is a younger brother in this family who becomes more of a central character as the film progresses. I don't want to give the story away so I will just say, if you want a true drama with no frills, fluff or effects, violence shown as it is, brutal and frightening (although I dont mean to put you off as it is highly watchable and not TOO brutal) -the utter desperation that some people live in and not only when this film is set in but today too. I know, I have lived in a similiar world. Nothing has really changed. If you want to find out just what this is like..GET THIS MOVIE! If you are from Glasgow or most places in central scotland - GET THIS MOVIE! Thats all :)

(Just GET THIS MOVIE..)

I nearly passed this movie up as the film guide had written a poor review (do they even watch the films?). In the end I watched the start intending to go to bed and ended up watching the whole film.

What interested me most was the picture the film gave of life in Glasgow during the 60's. The landscape of the film is one of endless factory's, warehouses and derelict buildings. All of which seem to look back to the past. The streets of Govanhill where the Glyn live are cobbled and winding narrow passages. Later in the film we are shown 'tong land'. Three massive tower blocks seemingly standing in the middle of a waste land. At the road leading in some graffiti reads 'you are now entering tong land'. The bleak concrete land in which they live is very striking and seems to belong more to the 70's than Govanhill which seems to belong back in the 1800's.

The film itself is good and I doubt anyone would be disappointed were they to watch it.