ROUTE IRISH is really angry and wants you to know all about it. Like all Ken Loach films it is about an oppressed Celt fighting the system. This time he's an ex-SAS and ex-PMC squaddie who refuses to accept the explanation offered by his former employers about how his best friend died in Iraq. After a cursory romance with his mate's gal, he quickly finds out that it's the corporate posh boys to blame again and so decides to go mental and take revenge. Although the trailers emphasise the action in Iraq, it's actually about the mental disintegration of an ex-soldier in Liverpool. Also, be warned that the Scouse accents are almost incomprehensible to non-Brits. Like most Loach films there's lots of excellent working class actors, gritty locations and a core of solid social drama. Sadly, like most Ken Loach films it is also absurdly partisan and preachy; his hero is almost schizophrenic in the way he switches from racial prejudice (soldiers as brutalised pawns of the elite) to loopy far- left ranting (which sounds like no soldier I've ever met) about the evils of the Iraq War. If Loach and his screenwriter Laverty could only get over their own prejudices then it would be a much better film.
Review of Route Irish
