Brassed Off.

In 1984 Mineworkers in the Britain went on strike, not for more money or for better working conditions but to save their jobs, their way of life and their communities. The threat came from Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government. It was her aim to shut down the coal industry by closing pits, something that was denied at the time but has since been proved to be correct. Before the strike in 1983 there were 174 working pits, by 2009 there was only six and now there are no working pits in any part of Britain mostly due to one rather cruel and heartless woman.

 

A long lost breed of working men. 

Brassed Off (1996) was set during the pit closures the Tory Governments were determined to implement following the end of the miners strike in 1985. Its now 1992 and the miners of Grimley Colliery North Yorkshire are facing a very uncertain future when the closures threaten their small mining community. Because many of the mine workers believe that the redundancy offer will be excepted there is no point in keeping the local Colliery Band alive, but their passionate band leader Danny (Peter Postlewaite) is having nothing of the kind and wants to enter the band into the National Brass Band Championship to take place at the Albert Hall in London. Help to achieve this end comes from a surprising source. The beautiful and talented young granddaughter of a former bandleader returns to her hometown and is invited to join the band, raising the spirits of its members. Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) also rekindles her relationship with Andy her childhood sweetheart. But when Andy (Ewan McGregor) and the other members discover that she works for the British Coal Board and is researching the pits viability to see if it makes financial sense to keep it open they ostracise her.

Danny leads the Colliery Band.

In hindsight we now know that that even if a coal mine was financially viable Thatcher’s masters wanted the pits closed. At its heart Mark Herman’s film, although there are some very humorous moments, has an underlying story about the hardships that were deliberately put upon the working men and women and their families along with the ruination of the industrial bedrock of the UK and the abolition of the organisations that represented the worker by an uncaring government and their wealthy cohorts only interested in the profit motive and power.

Still proud of their heritage (Durham 2016) 

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A very emotionally  poignant story whose cast is a credit to Herman’s script, acting out their roles with great feeling so much so that you can easily believe that they are committed to the underlying message that I believe the film sends out. If you have never seen this wonderful example of British filmmaking then I urge you to put that right immediately.  Either you have a heart of stone or think that the sun shined out of Thatcher’s backside not to empathise with what was happening. The workingmen and women of this country are still suffering with an extreme right wing government inflicting never ending austerity, zero hours contracts and a minimum wage that is so low it has to be topped up with in-work benefits. 

Legend.

Films like Performance (1968), The Long Good Friday (1980) owe a lot to the most famous of Britain’s home-grown criminals as does Legend (2015) which is based on the book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins by John Pearson adapted for the big screen by its director American Brian Helgeland, best known as script writer on such films as L.A. Confidential (1997), Mystic River (2003), Green Zone (2010) and Robin Hood (2010).

 

Reggie and Ronnie Kray enjoying a 'nice cup of tea'.

This latest outing, as you may of guessed, is about Ronnie and Reggie Kray identical twin brothers that run organised crime in the East End of London during the 1950’s and 60’s. Unlike Peter Medak’s The Krays (1990) it does not take as its central theme Violent the twins mother but Reggie’s wife Frances’s who also narrates the film. The twins who called themselves The Firm were responsible for armed robberies, arson and protection rackets amongst other criminal activities. The movie not only demonstrates the violence involved with the Kray Empire but also how they became owners of West End nightclubs, which attracted celebrities and entertainers also allowing them to mix with prominent politicians alleged to include both Tom Driberg and Lord Boothby. Because of their connections they became celebrities themselves even being photographed by fashion photographer David Bailey. 

 

Reggie's marriage to Frances.

The rather slick and polished overview of London’s criminal world in the 1960’s is a triumph for British actor Tom Hardy who convincingly plays both of the brothers and whose performance stays in your mind long after the film is over. Emily Browning is Frances Kray, the wife of Reggie; Christopher Eccleston is Detective Superintendent ‘Nipper’ Reed the nemesis of the Kray twins. The Kray’s business manager is played by David Threwis and Peaky Blinders star Paul Anderson is convincing as Albert Donoghue Reggie’s minder as is Tara Fitzgerald who dressed in black to show her displeasure at her daughter marrying Reggie Kray.

 

Ronnie and friend with Lord Boothby.

Beneath the razzle dazzle and glamour of the Kray’s life style is the violence that betrayed people’s admiration of these charismatic criminals. This brutal era and the mid sixties detail is enthusiastically drawn out in this movie both by cinematographer Dick Pope who worked with Mike Leigh on many of his films and designer Tom Conroy. From the Bethnal Green terraces to the bright lights of London’s West End we are treated to the working class boys who ‘made good’ - and bad.  To a certain extent Helgeland’s feature film is a British gangster movie that stands out head and shoulders above other movies in this genre because of the acting talent of its lead star.  

The Last Journey