Wonderful character development!

It is a performances centric movie

disgusting, overrated, pointless

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I absolutely love ewan macgregor, but also the message of the film. i think it would make a great double feature with "pride" (2014.)

*Spoiler/plot- Brassed Off, 1996. A 100 years old coal miners brass band members hit economic and social troubles when their coal mine's labor problems threaten to shut the mine down along with the band organization.*Special Stars- Pete Postlewaite, Ewan McGregor, Jim Carter.*Theme- Taking a social stand and speaking out is as important as making band music.*Trivia/location/goofs- UK, Yorshire. This film's band music caused a resurgence of interest in band music. Wtach this film for first-time on camera performances for many British and Scotish leading character actors.*Emotion- A thoroughly enjoyable character driven film plot about regular people's struggles with work, family and goals. It's a memorable film for it's themes, good casting, writing, and production.

I was born into a pit village (Wombwell) and i lived / worked through the miners strike. Not as a miner, but believe me when i say that everyone - EVERYONE who lived in the area at the time was effected in one way or another. The film depicts the relationships that existed at and around the time of the strike and the years that followed. It was a time of turmoil and Brassed Off is spot on in it's depiction of how friends and neighbours / colleagues and workmates / staff employed underground and in management or office roles were at loggerheads.Nothing can ever truly express the feelings and hardship that was the miners strike and the pit closures that followed.Arthur Scargill (figure of hate / love / comedic derision or political leader dependent on your background) was WRONG.Not necessarily in his views but certainly in his prophecy of the future. For even he did not predict the final number of pits that the Thatcherite government would evidentially close.The film is to many a landmark in British movie standards. To pigeon hole this film as a comedy - musical - political dialogue - does not do the film justice.If ever a film ticked all the boxes, this is the one.So sit back and watch a true cinematic epic! And the music (from a heavy metal fan at heart) is fantastic beyond all proportions.If you don't feel overwhelmed by William Tell or if Danny Boy doesn't bring a tear to your eye - then you may as well give up, as the message and the meaning of this film (that the only really important things in life are what you have always taken for granted) are probably why you never understood films such as Kes.

Grimley Colliery Brass Band has been going for nigh on a century, but as the town's colliery itself comes under threat of closure due to the drawn out miners strikes, so does the bands very own survival. Giving much relief to a very depressed area, the band are hoping to make the grand finals day at the Royal Albert Hall, could the arrival of Flugelhorn player, Gloria, be just what the band needs? Or is she merely the catalyst to something far more critical?Brassed Off is the first of what I personally call the Magical British Trio, three films that perfectly portray the British sense of humour during dark depressing times of unemployment. The other two of course are The Full Monty (1997) and Billy Elliot (2000), of which Brassed Off is essentially an appetiser of sorts, the warm up act for the big hitters so to speak. Not to say that Brassed Off is not worthy to sit alongside those well received pictures (home and abroad as they say), it most certainly is, it's just that its blend of humour and strife doesn't find any easy ground, thus making it hard for the undiscerning viewer to be at ease at the right moments. It is in short, unsure of what it primarily wants to be. The humour does work well tho, but it's in the dramatic core of the miners strikes, and the affects they have on the denizens of this quaint colliery town, that Brassed Off truly works, with some scenes literally tugging away at the old heart strings. Then there be the music itself, The Grimethorpe Colliery Band {on whose real life story this film is based} provide the music for the soundtrack, and its most enjoyable, often stirring, and definitely poignant at crucial moments.The cast are tremendous, Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald offer up splendid youthful heart, but they are playing second fiddle (or should that be third brass section?) to Pete Postlethwaite and Stephen Tompkinson. As father and son, Postlethwaite and Tompkinson give the film its deep emotional being, each driven by differing needs, Brassed Off's success rests with both men being able to hold the viewers attention from the get go. Tompkinson has made a very profitable and thriving career in British Television, and rightly so, but it remains criminal that he didn't go on and make more well known and profitable full length feature films after his fabulous turn here. Filmed in the ideal Northern English town of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Brassed Off is a film that has evident problems, but to someone like me, a Brit who lived thru those depressing days under Margaret Thatcher's government, it's a film that I love for a myriad of reasons, one can only hope that one of those reasons strikes a chord with yourselves.A completely biased 9/10 from me!