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NEDS

Release Date 21 Jan 2011 21 Jun 2011

  • User rating
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
  • Critic rating
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.

  60% of raters want to see this movie

Certificate: 18

Genre: Drama

John McGill is a promising student at a tough Glasgow school who, despite a family background of alcoholism and abuse, looks set to sail into university and a bright future beyond. That is, until things begin to go wrong at school and John, like his older brother before him, slips into the heady and dangerous world of Glasgow's gangland.

Cast:
Conor McCarron | Joe Szula | Mhairi Anderson | Gary Milligan | John Joe Hay

Writers:
Peter Mullan

Producers:
Olivier Delbosc | Alain De La Mata | Marc Missonnier

Directors:
Peter Mullan

  • Critic rating
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.

Movies.ie Critic Review

It’s Glasgow, 1972, and primary school poster boy John McGill (McCarron) is determined to prove his secondary school principal’s prejudices against him. Not easy, considering his older brother has been expelled, dad’s a violent alcoholic, and mum’s suitably browbeaten. And it doesn’t take long for John to realise that it’s incredibly hard to be a saint in the city. Especially when that city is Glasgow. In 1972. And you’re a working class Catholic.

THE VERDICT: It’s Lord Of The McFlys, or maybe This Is Glasgow, as the brute cruelty of youth is explored in Peter Mullan’s hard-hitting but touching film, the respected Scottish actor’s third as director, after Orphans (1997) and The Magdalene Sisters (2002). Mullan manages to mix Loach with Bunuel here, his heady mix held together by naturalistic performances from his non-professional younger cast. A marvel. The title, incidentally, is an acronym for Non-Educated Delinquents.

Review by Paul Byrne

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  • Currently 4/5 Stars.

User Reviews

    • Currently 4/5 Stars.

    Onionhead

    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.

    • Currently 4/5 Stars.

    mart

    great movie, thats being billed as a gang movie but its more of a coming of age movie, you really feel for the main character and hope he gets out of the hole he is in

    • Currently 5/5 Stars.

    laume

    Impressively directed and superbly written, this is a powerfully compelling coming-of-age story with a star-making central performance from young newcomer Conor McCarron.

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