Riff-Raff (1991)

100%

(Image: http://www.mcnulty.co.uk/)

Reminiscent of Fat City, this is a funny movie about those placed on the political scrapheap because of their birth circumstances and who are given no incentive to improve their lives. Director Ken Loach's obvious empathy for his characters shines through the potentially-depressing material and the damaged lives that mostly choose to be nothing but self-willed failures with unrealizable dreams of escape from uneventful lives.

But the startling good humor that runs rampant through the film keeps depression at bay, along with the inevitable dreams of petty revenge attendant on the exploited condition of the UK poor and that country's feeble class relations.

Impeccably-acted (especially by Ricky TOMLINSON & Robert CARLYLE) by all concerned with well-drawn characters and all-too-believable situations.

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