Another powerful drama after The Magdalene Sisters from Peter Mullan, set amidst the adolescent gang culture of 70s Glasgow, and loosely based on personal experience. John McGill, played with both menacing brawn and sensitive intelligence by McCarron, turns his back on his academic successes in favour of his older brothers gang lifestyle after experiencing prejudices within society and hypocritical, violent authority figures.The film doesn't hold back on the violence that gang mentality stirs up, often contrasting the boys as softly spoken individuals from decent homes against their violent gang behaviour. It's genuinely disturbing to see a good kid at heart fall so low, but Mullan's real stamp on the material separating it from countless other grim rites of passage social realist films is an almost comic absurdity. Highlights include Gary Wells as a piggy-back offering teacher, a kicking from Jesus himself in John's lowest point, a safe passage through a group of genuine predators and in the films most intense sequence John turning into a cross between Travis Bickle and Freddy Krueger.It is to Mullan and his actors credit that such deviations in tone don't unbalance the powerful, realistic drama at the heart of the film, even if they start to confuse and put into question the main characters state of mind.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning John (Connor McCarron) excels as a child in his studies, but the rough, hard environment around him soon has an effect on his personal character and, as he grows up in 1970s Glasgow, he moulds into one of the pack, as problems at home and school breed the violent character within him, going up against the hard drinking, knife wielding thugs that are the sworn enemies of the hard drinking, knife wielding thugs he's in with.Glasgow still holds the notorious accolade of being 'the knife crime capital of Great Britain', so this could have been just as hard hitting and unflinching as it was setting out to be being a modern day drama. Instead, director Peter Mullan has presented a sprawling, overlong if I'm brutally honest, exploration of a young man's despairing, senseless dessension into mindless thuggery, possibly based on his own experiences. As a result of this, it comes off as very hard to get into to start with, lost as it is in it's own mood, atmosphere and style. But it's these same things that somehow manage to make it a more absorbing experience if you stick with it long enough, slowly drawing you into the life of this troubled character and the various ups and downs he encounters as he trawls through the rough landscape of his youth. Still, this feels like quite an undisciplined effort from Mullan, which veers into outlandish, arty moments (such as the lead character duking it out with the Lord Jesus Christ) that only serve to make it an even more alienating experience than it already is. ***

Set in Scotland in the 1970s, the film centres on a promising young Scottish boys initial advancement through secondary school followed by an unrealistic regression in to a border line psychopath who has a "canny" grasp for Latin. He returns to school after a 6 week summer break more like a pre-borstal Scotish version of Carling (Ray Winstone) from Scum. Quite unbelievable that 6 weeks is all it takes for him to turn to the dark side. On a plus note the acting was solid and I suppose if you were born and bred within that particular environment then the film would have more resonance. Bleak with a heavy dose of realism, this film does not sugar coat life in the Glasgow ghetto.

Saw this film as part of the Tribeca film festival in New York yesterday My biggest concern with this film is that it's too White washed. I have lived in that part of the country and now living in New York with friends from that part of the world I find it hard to digest that everyone in the movie was white. I do understand that its not set in current day but even back in the day ethnic groups existed. They would have called for a greater conflict had they been represented. The movie doesn't seem to a true representation.Also the has moments of being too cheesy or calculated. The Jesus scene is completed uncalled for and it almost feels its a scene belonging to a different genre. I was extremely disappointed to see this film part of Tribeca's programming because there is nothing unique about this film.