Reviews

What are you doing carrying an ancient 10 kilogram sword around when you're on the run if you're not going to ever actually use it? For dramatic symbolism of course!

How does a simple industrial dispute at a Welsh steelworks run by Chinese investors become a national revolution? Against the English! I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of Welsh people wouldn't mind sticking one on the English, but NONE OF THAT MADE ANY SENSE! The steel works was ticking along, admittedly under foreign ownership, and yes there are big questions that we really should be asking about the future of industry in Wales and elsewhere in the UK, but a safety mishap and a dispute over the extent that a company guarantees employment in the medium to long-term do not, I'm afraid, a massive revolution make!

So, belief suspended, a family, with a far-too-big sword for company are made refugees in the UK. This is, of course an interesting idea and point of view that, I really felt, was not followed through. It felt like the writer was wondering "should I really go all out and use this refugee situation to portray the plight of refugees in the real world, or would that be too unbelievable?" We are left with an insulting refugee-lite portrayal of how losing your homeland really feels.

By the end, I would have been happy to have been bashed around the head by the sword for it to have had some actual purpose.

This is Montana in the 1920's. There are men. There are horses. There is the cruel outback. But this is not a "Western."

There is a chap-wearing gun-slinger. There is a widow, bereft, There are Indians who need cow-hides. But this is not a "Western." No shots are fired, no land is gained.

This is Montana in the 1920's. There is a Yale-educated land-owner. There is a man dangerously obsessed with his own memory of a great cowboy. And there is a lad obsessed with surgery and shoes.

He is cat-like in all his movements. He's graceful, he strays away from the pack. He watches, and waits. It's not clear even if he has struck, but it seems that he has.

It's not a "Western."

Well - this seems to have split people! Lots of 1/10's, lots of 10/10's!

1/10 or 10/10? I'd suggest neither mark-giver is really worthy of any attention?

It's an informative, well-delivered and infectious depiction of the real story of the Cragg Valley Coiners - a community of cottage weavers who, deprived of their trade during the early years of the industrial revolution, turned to a much simpler, though criminal, way of making money.

The nature of the crime is clearly played out as the local squire gets aboard - coin-cutting. Now, we may know similar modern parallels, but this was simply edging the gold from guineas to make more guineas. Incidentally, the Cragg Valley Coin Cutters cause a major problem to the British economy at the time.

Wooden acting? Give me a break. Shane Meadows is a master at allowing improvisation. I love it. It's intended, btw.