BRASSED OFF
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Miramax) Starring: Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald, Ewan McGregor, Stephen Thompkinson, Jim Carter. Screenplay: Mark Herman. Producer: Steve Abbott. Director: Mark Herman. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity) Running Time: 107 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Writer/director Mark Herman is so concerned about sounding the trumpet to deliver a "message" in BRASSED OFF that he almost ruins a perfectly good character study. The story is set in the Yorkshire town of Grimley, where Danny (Pete Postlethwaite) prepares to lead into competition the brass band made up of workers at the local colliery (coal mine). Danny seems blissfully unaware of the issue which preoccupies every other band member, including his own son Phil (Stephen Thompkinson): the government program of coal pit closures which is threatening to make Grimley the latest target. Still the band, including a lovely new arrival named Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald), plays on, trying to make progress toward a national competition at the Albert Hall while a union vote over the fate of the colliery looms.
BRASSED OFF is at its best painting a vivid portrait of life in a northern coal town. Long days of hard labor are punctuated by pints with the boys and nearly wordless exchanges between husbands and wives. Meanwhile, the battle of wills between Danny and the other band members points out a profound gap between what the band means to each side. For the players, it is a social club which provides a rare opportunity to blow off steam, demonstrated in an amusing montage of ever-more-inebriated performances. For Danny, the band is a symbol, an enduring tradition and the one beautiful thing in a dark, dusty world.
If Herman had kept his focus on this clash between pragmatism and idealism, best exemplified by the relationship between Danny and Phil (an exceptional performance by Stephen Thompkinson), BRASSED OFF could have been a minor gem. Unfortunately, Herman is determined to make sure we leave the theater enlightened about the injustice of the pit closure program. Phil rails against Margaret Thatcher in a church; Danny uses the band competition as a soapbox for the miners' cause; statistics of job losses roll by as the film ends. Like too many directors of films about social issues, Herman doesn't trust our sympathy for the characters to create all the resonance the story needs. Add an over-dramatized but under-developed romance between Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor (as a young miner) and you have a film which strays from its strengths. The human drama of BRASSED OFF makes for much sweeter music than strident sermonizing.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 brass bands: 6.
Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw Subscribe to receive reviews directly via email See details on the MoviePage
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews