Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
Like a subtly blended malt, this mixes light and dark to create one of Loach’s most life-affirming tales. Funny, frank and it won’t give you a splitting hangover.
The Angels’ Share won’t create controversy or fire up audiences with its fury. It is, though, a warm-hearted and funny, if slight, addition to Loach’s CV.
That it means well can hardly be denied. It means so well that well-meaningness is pretty much its defining characteristic. But something’s gone wrong when a would-be cheerful comedy leaves you feeling as if a condescending finger has been wagged in your face.
On the whole, it’s a pleasant, warming experience, even if some of the plotting is a bit hard to swallow.
It’s a deeply humane story of second chances, but there’s a problem: Loach doesn’t trust comic pathos alone to communicate his message of redemption.
Like good whisky, Loach is mellowing and becoming subtler with age — though a swift chug still has a bit of a kick.
Indulgent viewers may be willing to cut the film some slack thanks to Loach’s exalted reputation, but his somewhat bogus belief that using non-actors in speaking roles adds authenticity works against him here as first-timers trip over Laverty’s cloth-eared dialogue, frequently reducing The Angels’ Share to the level of a scripted reality TV show.
Imagine Trainspotting re-imagined as an Ealing comedy and you'll come close to its essence.
It’s a perfectly distilled blend of humour and pathos.
It’s more engaging than the slow-ish early half but the feel-good finale doesn’t feel much earned and the characters are underwritten.
Robbie and his mates are no angels, but the film finds a way of giving them something that real life can't or won't: a chance.
In Scotch terms, you'd say that The Angels' Share had a measure of single malt in it, but some Irn Bru and a pint of lager too.
here is politics underlying every aspect of this funny, warm-hearted, deftly plotted film, and we fervently wish for the caper planned by this endearing quartet to succeed.
Just like the title – which references the small amount of whisky that vaporises in the cask – there is something lost in this film, perhaps as a result of Loach’s recurrent storylines which have ultimately started to threaten the potency of his commentary.
At the last, though, it is down to the young cast of unknowns to do the business here and for the most part they do.
This is a caper movie and a cheery, shamelessly cheesy celebration of Scotland itself, from the use of The Proclaimers on the soundtrack, to a stream of fruity idiom and the roundabout way of introducing the national dress.
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
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