Ken Loach’s latest picture pulls an unexpected switch on the audience. It starts out as a gritty trawl through the kind of streets that lead only to jail or stabbings; then unexpectedly turns into a feel-good caper comedy with more cheek than an army of kilted Scots on a windy day.
Non-actor Paul Brannigan is impressive as Robbie, a new dad in his early twenties who wears, all too obviously, the marks of an early life lived hard and lived dangerously. The knife scar on his face and the long memories of his enemies would seem to preclude the chance of Robbie settling down into a stable family life. But having narrowly escaped jail, Robbie realises he has been given a last chance, and he is determined to grasp it.
One fantastic, searing scene captures Robbie’s anguish: forced to confront the family of one of the victims of his violence, Robbie finds himself identifying with the parents of a son whose life has been ruined by his own savage rage. He vows to turn over a new leaf and to be a proper father to his baby boy. But blood feuds don’t just stop when one party decides he has had enough, and Robbie finds himself repeatedly sprinting through the grimy backstreets of Glasgow with a baying pack of angry thugs after his blood.
Robbie finds a mentor in Harry (John Henshaw), a probation worker with a wide, generous face and an unshakeable belief in the inherent good that lurks in everyone. Crucially, he also has a passion for whisky, and he introduces Robbie and three other young offenders to the joys of fine single malt.
It’s fair to say that the film, which was written by Loach’s long-term collaborator Paul Laverty, is somewhat uneven in tone. The roughneck realism veers off via a queasily horrible gross-out moment that exceeds anything the body-fluid-obsessed Farrelly brothers ever cooked up. The tone lightens further with a Highland montage set to the insufferably jaunty I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers, a track that rivals the Clash’s London Calling as an unforgivable soundtrack cliché.
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The third act’s heist of a whisky distillery is engaging enough, although it’s unlikely to rate among the most inventive crime movies of all time. And the end is so affable and mellow it feels at odds with the cask-strength urgency of the film’s first act. Happily ever after is all very well, but it feels a little disingenuous not to offer some form of closure on Robbie’s chaotic former life. Ken Loach, 15 (101 min)