'NEDs' honest and observant

Director: Peter Mullan

Cast: Peter Mullan, Gregg Forrest, Conor McCarron, Louise Goodall, Joey Szula

Cert: 18

This is writer-director Mullan’s third outing and he doesn’t stint on the gritty, downbeat realism of his native Glasgow, circa l972, in a film that is both harrowing and funny.

NEDs are Non-Educated Delinquents - and we have plenty of them here.

Forrest plays the young McGill (McCarron is the grown-up version), a bright student from a dysfunctional family – father (Mullan) is a drunk, mother (Goodall) is abused and brother (Szula) is a thug – whose life isn’t made easier by bullying teachers … from which point it’s all downhill into a world of violence and foul language.

Yet this is a film of quality, described by Mullan as “personal but not autobiographical” it is honest, observant and quite brilliantly realized by the cast, not least by the excellent McCarron.

Star Rating: 4/5