elaine-105
Joined Aug 2005
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elaine-105's rating
I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about football. No matter how many times I get the off-side rule explained to me via the medium of table condiments, I still don't understand it – I'm still waiting for a giant vinegar bottle to lumber into view from the right wing. Fortunately, you don't need a firm grasp of the beautiful game to appreciate Half Time and Down, a pithy short film by The Guvnors actor turned writer/director Mark-John Ford.
Sadly, a good grasp of the game is exactly what Stanley Beavers FC lack. We meet this hopeless bunch of misfits in their dressing room before a match: alternately overweight, underfed, stoned, bored, old or just plain useless, they're like a usual suspects line up of the last kids ever to be picked for a team at school, all grown up and still without a clue. And no amount of sweary haranguing from their overbearing, bullying manager (Tom Davis) is going to kick them into shape. And of course, as the title suggests, at half time they're six goals down. Ouch. Even I know that's not good.
Frankie John and Tom Davis in Half Time and DownCue twenty minutes of blokey banter that, while often very funny, is also rather sad, picking at the scabs of the teams' lives to suggest all kind of unresolved issues lying beneath. Like Dog Soldiers crossed with Full Metal Jacket, the script captures both the casual cruelty of lads larking about and also the way in which a little bit of power can make a man (or in this case, a manager) a little bit mad.
That said, Half Time and Down is hardly subtle in its delivery (the team are, after all, called the Beavers, and every other word starts with an f), but it does a lot with a small budget and a largely unknown cast. Not entirely my cup of tea, but a promising debut all the same. Go Beavers!
Sadly, a good grasp of the game is exactly what Stanley Beavers FC lack. We meet this hopeless bunch of misfits in their dressing room before a match: alternately overweight, underfed, stoned, bored, old or just plain useless, they're like a usual suspects line up of the last kids ever to be picked for a team at school, all grown up and still without a clue. And no amount of sweary haranguing from their overbearing, bullying manager (Tom Davis) is going to kick them into shape. And of course, as the title suggests, at half time they're six goals down. Ouch. Even I know that's not good.
Frankie John and Tom Davis in Half Time and DownCue twenty minutes of blokey banter that, while often very funny, is also rather sad, picking at the scabs of the teams' lives to suggest all kind of unresolved issues lying beneath. Like Dog Soldiers crossed with Full Metal Jacket, the script captures both the casual cruelty of lads larking about and also the way in which a little bit of power can make a man (or in this case, a manager) a little bit mad.
That said, Half Time and Down is hardly subtle in its delivery (the team are, after all, called the Beavers, and every other word starts with an f), but it does a lot with a small budget and a largely unknown cast. Not entirely my cup of tea, but a promising debut all the same. Go Beavers!
What do you get if you cross the plot of Let The Right One In with the special effects of a budget Hulk movie, then set it all in Trainspotting territory, with a bunch of Irish Gypsy mumbo jumbo thrown in for good measure. Well, fairly obviously, you get low budget horror thriller Outcast.
Intense, witchy Mary and her teenage son Fergal (Kate Dickie and Niall Bruton) are on the run. But when they set fire to their van and accept a scummy council tenancy in a run-down scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, it appears that their days on the road are over. Big mistake, as mysterious, tattooed, radge hit-man Cathal (James Nesbitt) is hot on their heels, tracking them down using bizarre divining rituals involving pigeons' entrails. Well, it's hardly as if the reclusive pair are on Facebook.
But while Mary sets about weaving protective spells around their flat, Fergal is off getting to know his new neighbourhood, and in particular feisty 'teenager' Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge), who spends her days caring for her mentally disabled brother while her alcoholic mother lies sprawled on the sofa sleeping off the grog. But as a sudden, awkward and rather unlikely romance starts to blossom, Cal is closing in, having been given the go ahead by the local gypsy king or Laird (played, of course, by James Cosmo, as it is illegal to make a film in Scotland without offering him a part).
All sounds a bit strange. Well, it is, but it's also gory, gritty and weirdly compelling – although not always terribly convincing. Perhaps I just have trouble believing there's black magic taking place on my bus route. Or indeed that such cheesy, playground black magic could be so immediately effective – Rosemary's Baby this ain't.
But that aside, this is a brave film that's genuinely trying to do something different, and while the result is at times cheap and patchy, it's also like nothing you've seen before, a sort of dysfunctional Mike Leigh film for the Twilight generation.
Now where did I put my jar of blood and pile of dead birds? I'm off to cast a spell on a traffic warden
See more of my reviews at www.elainemacintyre.net 8-)
Intense, witchy Mary and her teenage son Fergal (Kate Dickie and Niall Bruton) are on the run. But when they set fire to their van and accept a scummy council tenancy in a run-down scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, it appears that their days on the road are over. Big mistake, as mysterious, tattooed, radge hit-man Cathal (James Nesbitt) is hot on their heels, tracking them down using bizarre divining rituals involving pigeons' entrails. Well, it's hardly as if the reclusive pair are on Facebook.
But while Mary sets about weaving protective spells around their flat, Fergal is off getting to know his new neighbourhood, and in particular feisty 'teenager' Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge), who spends her days caring for her mentally disabled brother while her alcoholic mother lies sprawled on the sofa sleeping off the grog. But as a sudden, awkward and rather unlikely romance starts to blossom, Cal is closing in, having been given the go ahead by the local gypsy king or Laird (played, of course, by James Cosmo, as it is illegal to make a film in Scotland without offering him a part).
All sounds a bit strange. Well, it is, but it's also gory, gritty and weirdly compelling – although not always terribly convincing. Perhaps I just have trouble believing there's black magic taking place on my bus route. Or indeed that such cheesy, playground black magic could be so immediately effective – Rosemary's Baby this ain't.
But that aside, this is a brave film that's genuinely trying to do something different, and while the result is at times cheap and patchy, it's also like nothing you've seen before, a sort of dysfunctional Mike Leigh film for the Twilight generation.
Now where did I put my jar of blood and pile of dead birds? I'm off to cast a spell on a traffic warden
See more of my reviews at www.elainemacintyre.net 8-)