A Major Disappointment

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

As I watched this superb Ken Loach film I kept on being reminded of "Get Carter". It wasn't the storyline but the imagery, the characters, the acting, and the reasons why this film works so well. And the central idea, as in "Get Carter", is about seeking justice for something that has happened to someone close. From the moment we observe the bereaved Rachel, played with uncanny realism by Andrea Lowe, walk up and symbolically thump Mark Womack's Fergus we know we are in for a tough and uncompromising movie. And, as the story unfolds, we observe Womack's troubled character go through so many transitions whilst being so convincingly set on obtaining a certain justice for his best mate Frankie (John Bishop).And although there are complexities in unravelling who did what and to whom the basic story is very simple, so simple it tells itself right to the very end. There is no room for sentimentality in this film, no clear divide between the good and the bad, we are simply left to imagine what we might do in the same circumstances. If there is a moral to the story it is the price of justice and the cost of being a survivor when things go wrong for someone very close to you.The acting across the board is of the highest standard but I will single out Andrea Lowe and Mark Womack for performances which are stunningly realistic, beautifully honed and so powerfully delivered. These two just hold you in their grasp whenever they are on screen.It is not a film for everyone and the subject matter is very controversial but it achieves what it sets out to do. It makes you think about what you might do in the same situation, how far you might go, how guilty you might feel, and it does so without ever sensationalising what is going on.I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys being immersed in intelligent films.

If you want a movie that will hold your attention and leave you feeling like you've watched a great movie, this is it. I am not a connoisseur of Ken Loach, or a movie snob, I just enjoy a movie that holds my attention.Unlike the other reviewers, I thought the characters were well-drawn and convincing. The effects used on the film itself such as graininess, washed out lomo effect, and darkness in the right places, makes this a pleasure to watch.The over-use of the f-bomb is a real factor. Men do talk exactly like that, but for a film less would have been more.The politics of the mercenary world are shown brilliantly and without any sense of preachiness or one-sidedness.Just an excellent movie.

A very strong piece of cinema by Ken Loach, away from his usual social dramas, being this more a kind of war-thriller, but not lacking strong denunciation and great courage. The director uses his camera to denounce the crude reality of contractors behind the real stage of Iraqui war. We get to know the life of these contractors, once simply called mercenaries, working for private security firms, whose acting inside wars seem uncontrollable and out of every rule. Loach wants to display and manages to display things in an objective and cold way, regaining the right perspective, showing that although in a war context it is difficult to take the right perspective, there is always, if we want to be honest, a well-cut border between good and evil, good people and bad people, between right and wrong, and this is the most convincing point through the movie. It's difficult to have a conscience with a gun or a bomb in your hands, but when innocent people are killed, and when your conscience prevails, one has to come to terms with it in some way, and the price to be paid may be very high. It's a very harsh movie, it has the crudity of a documentary piece, in search for as much as verity, that's why the more entertaining elements, such as the thriller one, and also the love between Fergus and Frank's wife is treated in a cold way, as if love cannot side with such atrocities. Certainly a thought-provoking, very actual movie which again raises many questions and doubts about the legitimacy of a "just war".

A timely and hard hitting film about the Iraq conflict from the great Ken Loach and written by his long time colleague, Paul Laverty which deals mostly with the role of private security firms (mercenaries working for the various western governments) and their lawless actions out there in a conspiracy thriller with a very real edge that also shows the pressures on soldiers in civilian life to conform to normality when leaving a war zone. Using relatively unknown actors with Mark Womack starring and John Bishop (the comedian, surprisingly good) and Andrea Lowe co-starring, it is in this that a few flaws are shown as there is a couple of scenes which really don't look too convincing in my opinion but oblivious to this, it is still a very real feeling film for me in representing Womack as a troubled ex-SAS soldier who is working as a security soldier (merc) with his best friend joining him in Iraq for the big pay and Womacks relationship after the death with Bishops girlfriend (here in lies some great acting between Womack and Andrea Lowe). What transpires from the start is Womack not making a flight for a job due to a fight in Liverpool and Bishop getting killed in a manner which seems suspicious to him and from here you get a great 'who dun-nit' style thriller which doesn't pull it's punches in some of it's scenes in dealing with the guilty parties but also a good message and insight into what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan with the rise of private armies working for various corporations that are aligned with our governments and also some of the atrocities which happen on a regular basis that are swept under the carpet. Not in the league of 'the wind that shakes the barley' or 'my name is Joe' but still a entertaining thriller with a good message.