Too many fans seem to be blown away

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

I started watching this movie knowing almost nothing about it. Once it began, it gave me the idea it would be a dramatic story about two enemies who turn out as friend in the end. The story is not that original or anything, but it kept me entertained, since I enjoy movies involving prison system and its consequences. However, the movie got into its climax and I couldn't identify what was its purpose; were Brendan and Milwall good friends or simply lovers? My complaint is that the movie doesn't choose if it's a story about friendship or romance, so you don't know what is clearly the message of the movie. In fact, you don't even know what are the real Brendan's feelings-- maybe even he doesn't know. The escaping scene is pure fun and a showing of young's seek for freedom, and we all can understand the young boys for doing that. Other than that, the theater scene is a little implausible, since I hardly doubt they'd have such materials to make a beautiful stage and outfit like that. So that's it, "Borstal Boy" is well acted and directed, but the story could (should) be more clear, in order to know what it is really trying to show. Good/average movie anyways.

As others have mentioned, the dialog was a real obstacle at times -- I couldn't even tell if the dockside conversation at the end was English or Gaelic. In most any other film, this would have had me at the point of surrender before reaching even the halfway point. But the story shines through here. And while parts are admittedly improbable or inaccurate, this didn't distract one bit. In the shocking final newsreel scene, I was just as distraught as Hatosy's character -- I replayed the scene at least 10 times, each time quite undone its emotional wallop.High marks to Hatosy, Dyer, and Inglesby, whose other work I will now purposefully seek out.

Sure, the script sports a contemporary sensibility, but how did this engrossing little gem get lost? Far from perfect, but consider all the trite and dumbed-down stuff that has been exploding on the screen in recent years. The story was more interesting than I had anticipated, I was a kid when Brendan Behan died, my father bemoaning the loss of a talented alcoholic so young.Hard to reconcile the character etched so well by Shawn Hatosy succumbing to a life of alcohol, since the portrait presented, and so well acted, is one of an admirable young man overcoming so much.Charlie, so well played by Danny Dyer, is very interesting, so it would have been more satisfying to have the writers expanding the characters (the story itself takes about 85 minutes).Nevertheless, this deserved far more attention and I rate it, Very good indeed (how about a sequel, set here in the USA)?SPOILERS!!I have no idea whether, as others have wondered, the script is accurate. But one small nit. As man with a double minority heritage (Jewish and Gay) (that's me), I am so damn tired of having sympathy given over to us in on the screen, only to have us bumped off before the curtain falls! Let the bad guys get killed for a change.

In wartime England a reform school headed by a benign warden harbors troublemakers of different nationalities. The IRA rascal, brilliantly played by an American, Sean Hatosy, is just one of the boys whose antics propel Sheridan's film through comic scenes to a finale of loss and sadness. Sheridan's cutting is quick and deft, and, except for the last 10 minutes the plot skillfully avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality.Warning to new directors: pop songs on a movie soundtrack can be injurious to your film, as it is here, along with a peculiarly stagy ending in an Irish railway station, where the hero vanishes into clouds of steam. Otherwise the film is very moving, and certainly one of the best investigations ever into the rightness of feelings of love. Defying the long and awesome tradition of Irish verbal art, Sheridan demonstrates that sometimes silence is the best way to express the feelings that attend separation. The inmates' production of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a small triumph. The entire film is a huge triumph for director Sheridan. See it in a theater with a good sound system: sometimes the Irish-accented English can be hard to grasp.