Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

(38%) A comedy drama that isn't funny or dramatic enough to surpass even moderate expectations. The director Shane Meadows appears to relish depicting the working class, but here his characters largely come across like one dimensional Viz cartoon strips, only not as comically pleasing, yet at the same time just as stereotypical. The cast is made up of a strong British cast from all corners of the country, but the slightly soap opera style writing is never quite good enough meaning no one ever gets the chance to shine. There are some amusing parts toward the first half, but the maudlin and trite closing sequence is enough to make me never want to watch this ever again.

I have to disagree with the review that found Rhys Ifans obviously "acting", as Dek. I know guys who are repressed like Dek, who sometimes play up having more testosterone than they really do. Ifans was spot on as a dorky guy who wants to impress his mates and the woman he loves. Shirley Henderson (Harry Potter, Hamish MacBeth)was a little too mousy, in voice at the very least, and way too thin- she looks anorexic! The movie had me laughing out loud at numerous points, much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of my neighbors. Finn Atkins was great as Marlene, the kid in the middle of the adult mess. The supporting cast was truer to life than most. 8 out of 10!

I got a great idea: British films are sooo bad, what if we gather all the great actors we've got in one place - English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, scouse, brummie, cockney, yeah? Mix em all up like in one big impossible family? It's gonna be a scream. OK, so we pitch the idea and some idiot gives us the green light. Man, this is gonna be bigger than the Boondock Saints. So we get the cast - and what a cast! - and we get the director, locations, mobile café, the works. Dammit! Who brought the story? What, no one? We're gonna have to make it up as we go along? What if it turns out to be a horrible, embarrassing mess, a waste of time and the collective talents of the UK's finest thesps? Whaddayamean, it couldn't happen again: when was the last time you paid to watch a British film? Guess what? It did happen again. Makes you want to crawl away and die of humiliation, don't it? Question: Who on God's planet finances British films? It has to be the same people who 'run' English football. Don't they watch movies? Don't they want to make money? See the papers this weekend (Aug 19 2006)? Bollywood consistently outperforms - make that trashes out of sight - British films in the UK. The subcontinental fools! Has no one told them how last century it is to make entertaining films that people actually want to see? You want to know what a bunch of relative unknowns can do with a script written with love, care and respect for its audience? Go watch Serenity.

Firstly, let me say how much I like Shane Meadow's work (particularly 'A Room For Romeo Brass'). However 'Once Upon a Time in The Midlands' is, in my opinion, his weakest work to date. That's not to say it isn't a good film, it is, but somewhere along the line the Meadow's formula went wrong. It smacks of too much development, something Meadows complained about himself, almost as if Film Four wanted to bottle the distinctive spirit of his earlier work, mass produce it and sell it to the widest audience possible. The characters end up as caricatures and whereas previous Meadows films examined the wonderful humanity and quiet dignity inherent in everyday life this one ends up in danger of being patronising to its subjects. The title and tag line are great but I wonder if they weren't thought up before the actual story and at the expense of the film. I personally found the Western elements a little superfluous, the deluge of famous faces distracting (what on Earth are Reeves and Mortimer doing as clowns?!), and the Glasgow gangsters subplot unnecessary. Once these elements fall by the wayside however, as they do in the second half, the film settles down into telling a decent little story. The central love triangle comes to the fore and we actually begin to connect with the characters. All the performances are good but special mention must go to young Finn Atkins who is outstanding. If this is your first taste of Meadows then don't be put off, just know that there are better films in his back catelogue than this. The 2 disc DVD is worth investing in though as the extras include Shane's World and a really nice documentary on the film's promotional tour.