Wonderful character development!

Fantastic!

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The acting in this movie is really good.

John McGill is a bright student and hounded by a local bully. His father is a volatile drunk. His older brother leads a local gang. He is put into the lower class due to his brother's reputation. He gets out at the first opportunity by being the top student of the lower class. As a teen, John becomes more brash and more rebellious. He becomes a volatile leader of the local kids taking on all rivals.I like these two movies and they are two separate movies. John McGill as a kid is interesting in his struggles. Then the movie jumps in years to a teenage John McGill and he's a completely different character. The in-between years is missing. It seems like interesting things happened during that time but it's not on the screen. The teenage years do hold some fascinating violence but it gets a little repetitive and the movie goes on a little too long.

I haven't really watched many (any?) Scottish films but I am familiar with Peter Mullan, having seen his completely depressing TYRANNOSAUR previously. NEDS is equally grim, but also uplifting. It's a film with a nostalgic '70s ambiance and an autobiographical feel, featuring the misadventures of a shy, chubby schoolboy who ends up becoming a fearsome teenage gang member.NEDS is a lengthy, slow-paced and frequently hard-hitting movie that tackles some uncomfortable home truths. It's a little off-putting, with sometimes impenetrable dialogue from the Scots cast and a simmering undercurrent of violence that sometimes erupts on the surface. This is very much a realistic movie that tackles cause and effect without sugar-coating the answers.I found it compelling and often heartfelt, managing to elicit pathos and humour from the grim situation. Conor McCarron delivers a quietly effective turn as the put-upon lead and Mullan himself has a strong supporting role as the frightening alcoholic father. But it's the young cast who really shine in their parts, giving performances so authentic that this feels like a documentary at times.

Neds tells the story of John, a Catholic teenager growing up in 1970s Glasgow. The story line follows John's involvement with his city's Ned culture and the consequences of it on his teenage years. The movie won Best Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival in January 2011.Good points: The characters were well portrayed and gave a good performance, making it realistic and a good representation of how life would have been like as a young Scottish boy. Also, the music that is played in the movie is well suited to it and is the correct year when released.Bad points: The accents were very strong, at some points I couldn't understand what they were saying. The ending, might have had a good meaning to it, but was a disappointment as I was expecting something that was exciting. Also the film is over two hours long, which was too long.Overall: I would give the film 6.5/10, because the acting was good, along with the representation of teenagers in1970's Scotland, but the film was very long and the overall story line could have been better scripted.

Growing up in inner city Glasgow in the Seventies, gangs are ubiquitous. The stories of stabbings and kickings have an awful, magnetic allure. Jimmy Boyle, mythologised by his lack of presence due to incarceration, like an Anti-Mandela figure, is the archetypal hardman in a town still nicknamed No Mean City. Glasgow's Miles Better has yet to be thought of. And school is not where you learn, it is where you survive.Like Lynne Ramsey's Ratcatcher, Neds resonates with Glaswegians born in the Sixties who grew up in this mayhem, and now look at it with the benefit of age and distance and wonder how we ever took it for normality.John is the academically gifted younger brother of a locally respected/ feared ned. His father is mostly missing or drunk, his mother struggles to cope. Like many Scots, the family role model is the one who has exiled herself. Joe's big brother Benny (a charismatic Joe Szula) provides a buffer between him and the worst of the violence - but also gives him a free pass towards initiation. Mean, visceral humiliation from local bully Kanta propels John away from study and towards Benny's sphere of influence. After many trials and betrayals, John survives that, till another humiliation at the point of a crossbow pushes him again to the brink.Cinematically, Mullen is playful and challenging here. The director says Kubrick and Peckinpah were evoked in keeping with the time; the duct taping of knives to hands is pure Peckinpah, and the juxtaposition of foot-tapping music with jaw-breaking violence recalls Kubrick. The ending is big canvas cinema, but it worked for me. There is also a lovely rhythm here, the gangs running toward and away from each other more often than not. That's how I remember it in Maryhill - big boys always running after or away from other big boys.Drunk Dads (Mullen in an acting career best), Bolan, six of the belt, winchin' up the graveyard, change on the buses, Provvie cheques - I loved it. But then I grew up with it. Outside Glasgow, and a certain generation, this might be more difficult to access. It will do better in Europe and Asia where the subtitles will help, and the essential coming-of-age story will rise to the fore more.