Film Review: ROUTE IRISH (2010)

Director: Ken Loach
Running time: 110 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

Genre: Drama/War
USA Release date: 18^th March 2011

Watched on Sky+ Monday 24^th October 2011.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

I have been a bit of a fan of the work of Ken Loach for a while now, ever since I saw Kes (made in 1969, but I saw it much later) and more recently Looking for Eric (2009). This one, although still good, failed to quite hit the mark (for me). There were several aspects of it that seemed incomplete. I’ll tell you more after this very brief summary.

Whilst working for a security firm in Iraq, in 2007, Frankie is killed. His best friend, Fergus, is devastated and feels there is something not quite right about the circumstances of his death. A former mercenary himself, he begins his own investigation. Enlisting the help of Frankie’s widow, Rachel, and an Iraqi musician, Harim, he begins to piece together the events leading up to Frankie’s death. I won’t say any more or the Spoiler Police will be shooting at that taxi I’ll be taking home on Thursday night. Oh, I should also mention, just for completeness, that ‘Route Irish’ is the code name used for the route between Baghdad Airport and the Green Zone.

Set in Liverpool and with an extremely gritty edge to it, there are no punches pulled in this realistic drama. Of course budget constraints mean most of the action has to take place in the UK, but there is a fair bit of archive footage of events in Iraq at the time to fill the gap. Be warned though, some of it is quite graphic. As far as performances go, well, both Mark Womack as Fergus and Andrea Lowe as Rachel were excellent. A lot of the dialogue is ad-libbed and I thought they both did an excellent job! John Bishop, better known as a comedian here in the UK, plays Frankie (in flashback) and he did a pretty good job too. I thought Talib Rasool as Harim was very good as well.

Over all, it just failed to hit the mark. I think I found the ending a bit of a let-down but sadly I cannot talk about it here. It did have its good points though and I did find it quite enthralling up to a point, but it was a little too long for me. It’s a shame because I really wanted to like this one, but then you can’t have everything I suppose. I will still deem it worthy of a viewing, but be warned of a lot of swearing and some graphic content.

My Score: 6.4/10.

IMDb Score: 6.3/10 (based on 1,051 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1528312/

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73/100 (based on 26 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/route_irish/

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FAVOURITE QUOTE:
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LINKS:
Trailer:

Film Review: CIRCLE OF EIGHT (2009)

Director: Stephen Cragg
Running time: 84 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

Genre: Mystery/Drama
UK release date: Straight to DVD

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 26th February 2011.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

From the description on the TV guide, this looked like it might be interesting. Unfortunately you cannot believe everything you read. The concept was quite good, however, the execution didn’t match up by a long chalk. I’ll explain what I mean later, but here’s a brief summary first (summary haters and those that don’t wish to know anything about the plot please help Jessica move in while I write the next paragraph).

Jessica is moving into her first apartment in the big city (Los Angeles in this case). Driving through the streets she’s full of optimism and looking forward to her new surroundings. Outside the building, the Dante, she meets Evan, an attractive young man who helps her with her stuff. The building manager, Ed, is a bit odd, but likable enough, although he’s a bit particular about tenants going into his ‘File Room’. Having moved in, Jessica is then visited by several of the other occupants, an odd bunch to say the least. They are all very insistent that she joins them for a roof-top party to celebrate the New Year. And then strange things begin to happen, Jessica begins to see the other residents murdered, one by one. Nobody seems concerned about this and so she goes to Evan to try and get some answers. I’ll leave it there and I’ve probably made it sound a lot better than it really is.

This film has the look and feel of a student short that got made into a feature. It all seems very amateurish, everything from the cinematography, to the sound, to the acting seems to have had little thought to it. Nobody on screen really deserves a mention, but I will name a few so you’ll know who’s responsible. If anything, John Bishop was the best performer as Ed, but he wasn’t great, Ryan Doom (great name!) was adequate as Evan and Austin Highsmith was ok, I guess, as Jessica.

I feel I’ve been a little generous with my score (below), but the concept behind this very poor film was actually quite good. The trouble is, little, or no, thought went into the execution. Maybe some of it could be blamed on budget restrictions, but I’ve seen much better than this made for a lot less. I think you can probably guess what comes next… definitely NOT recommended… You have been warned.

My score: 4.1/10

LINKS:
(RT = Rotten Tomatoes)
IMDb Page: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1520496/
RT Page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/circle_of_eight/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi984024345/