Miss out on NEDS and you’ll be kicking yourself.
A rush of violent, visceral drama, Mullan's directorial effort will stay with you. The disappointment? A final third that meanders to its conclusion.
Neds is not perfect - it runs perilously close to losing its head of steam by overshooting several potential end points - yet it's probably Mullan's best work to date.
Neds is a disturbing and deeply felt account of social betrayal.
Menace, resonance, a scary credibility: all the things we get too little of...in Neds.
Upsetting, shocking and riveting – and coming on oddly like season four of The Wire relocated to ’70s Glasgow – NEDS cements Mullan’s position in the front rank of British filmmakers.
It's hardly feel-good cinema but, once seen, Neds can never be forgotten.
A remarkable achievment that cements Peter Mullan’s place as one of Britain’s best film-makers.
It's arguably too long and there's a touch of self-mythologising but with compelling flashes of rage and nauseous black comedy, and some brilliant and bizarre images – a gruesome encounter with the crucified Christ and an hallucinatory walk with wildlife.
Neds is a local film trying to be heroic but not, alas, quite getting there.
What undermines the film is a weakness for crashing symbolism.
A dark, evocative, hard-hitting piece of film-making leavened by flashes of sly wit, a great eye for period detail and a sound ear for authentic dialogue.
Just when you thought British cinema was in danger of stalling in its default mode – classy crowd-pleasing, with award-worthy millinery – along comes Neds to give it a rude and vital kick up the rear.
It may lack the sober, finished economy of Mullan's heart-wrenching, female-centred The Magdalene Sisters, but it's a bracing antidote to UK cinema's usual polarities of half-cocked populism and manicured politeness.
This angry film is a forceful slice of life, clearly indebted to the realism of Ken Loach.
Not Exactly Delightful or Salubrious.
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Interview: Peter Mullan, actor and director
Peter Mullan: hard-nut who became a screen visionary
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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