Song For A Raggy Boy (tbc)
TOTAL FILM RATING USER RATING (1 user)
BY: Total Film Mar 26th 2004 FILED UNDER: Cinema reviews
The true story of how young inmates suffered horrific abuse at an all-boys Irish Reformatory School is clearly one that deserves to be told. Trouble is, the template for telling it here is every liberal-teacher-fights-the-system flick you've ever seen.
So what we get is an uneasy mix of The Magdalene Sisters and Dead Poets Society, with Aidan Quinn as the Spanish Civil War vet intent on improving the hapless urchins' lives through kindness and culture. Building to a shameless rip-off of Poets' hanky-soaking climax, the clichés rain down as heavily as the floggings dished out by Iain Glen's fascistic Brother John.
Good job, then, that there's some solid thesping and stark lensing to offset the surprise-free script. Quinn's accent may be dubious at best but his heart's definitely where it should be, while helmer Aisling Walsh grabs the emotions more than once by refusing to soft-pedal the boys' plight.
Print User Reviews (1)
alexanderpatton
Awesome movie. Very disturbing of course with the nature of the film however the film really captures your emotions and gives you a slight feeling of what the boys went through in the industrial school system. The boys, especially John Travers and Chris Newman, the two main young characters did an awesome acting job in this movie and really filled the role.
User rating: 4
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