Neds **** (2010, Conor McCarron, Peter Mullan, Greg Forrest, Joe Szula) – Classic Movie Review 3341

Director-writer Peter Mullan’s semi-autobiographical film – his third movie after Orphans (1998) and The Magdalene Sisters (2002) – is a real heart-breaker, and an incredibly tough-minded, harsh-toned one, with the whiff, nay stench of reality running pungently throughout it.

Returning to the Seventies Glasgow of his youth, he delivers a shocking, slam-bang coming-of-age tale of Non-Educated DelinquentS. Conor McCarron shows incredible star quality as the teenage anti-hero, John McGill, an appalling, frightening, scary sinner, but seemingly more sinned against than sinning.

The script is astoundingly rich, raw and poignant, the performances are rough, ready and real, and the direction is wildly imaginative. Mullan’s acting role as the unworthy dad Mr McGill is brave and true, like the film itself.

To explain the title, the film uses Non-Educated DelinquentS as a backronym for NEDS, as it is commonly used by the Scots since the Nineties, their equivalent of the English chav.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3341

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