Riff-Raff (1991) User Reviews

Powerful 1980's Thatcherite comedy-drama that is well worth watching.

[Pedro_H · 8/10 · 21 October 2004]

It is rare that a drama is anything about your life or any part of it. I apologise is your job is searching for serial killers or on your way to becoming a world sporting champion after overcoming cancer, but what we have here is a little bit of (UK) working class reality. Trust me I was there and so was the late writer Bill Jess.

(Jess died shortly before this film came out.)

I worked on a building sites at weekends as a 15 year old and although I have no pictures or film to remind - at least I have this and the buildings that I helped construct.

I have met all of the people under the loop here (not always on building sites though) and, to be quite frank, it is all a bit frightening. However I lived in a predominantly white district so I had no experience of on-the-job multiculturalism, and that is the only part I cannot really comment upon or relate to.

Robert Carlyle is a genius at portraying the British working-class. Maybe he is the real thing, in part, but he seems able to transform himself physically as well as mentally. I have never seen him overact in anything and he has had plenty of opportunities. He even takes on impossible parts like Hitler!

Here he is a Glasgow jailbird, squatting in London and hoping to make a few quid on the black economy. He hooks up with a girl that claims to be a singer and poet, but is actually only in to hard drugs. He deals with the situation the best he can using the only language he can.

London is the 1980's was one of the cheapest places in the world to live. You wanted a flat? - get a crowbar - here's your flat! Well for a short while before the heavy mob show up. That is how the rock group The Police first got to live in our capital city!

(Today building sites are full of foreign workers - some legal, some not - that don't squat but live in the back of vans parked on or near the site.)

Strangely, Ricky Tomlinson became a actor after being banned from building sites due to his political activities. In 1973 he sent to jail (see his IMDb bio) in an episode that shows British justice at its worst: Charging someone with a serious offence and then trying to get a guilty plea in return for a lesser charge. Ricky - being a man not a mouse - didn't fall for it. Others did, making it look extra bad for him.

He later went to be a popular man on TV and British film and will earn over a million dollars from his autobiography "Ricky"!

What makes this film even more frightening is the dramatic conclusion. Something similar (although not quite as serious) happened where I worked - although not while I was there.

In a coincidence that would make a TV script writer blush I was with the boss of the said firm in a van and we passed the subject in the street. "He got very lucky," said Mr Boss-man waving from the van, "he landed on his head and that is what saved him." It was pure Ken Loach moment, so I hope he is reading this.

Good Film, Great Acting!

[fembot1005 · 7/10 · 14 October 2010]

This is a good film but what is great about it truly is the acting. I agree with the other poster here that the acting is phenomenal and the main actors in this movie truly shine as though they really are the characters they are playing in this film, 100% believable in their roles. Big congrats to the cast of this one for their great work. I only saw this by happenstance because my friend taped it on a cable channel years ago by mistake and we were looking for a tape to record a show while we were out and I said not to tape over this because it looked interesting, how about that? It's about the working class in England and seems to be very realistic about these hard working people who sometimes have very dangerous jobs they simply don't have any other choice of making a living. I am surprised never to have heard of this movie before but if you get a chance to watch it I would say check it out for sure if you are a fan of good acting :)

Just checking the plumbing.....

[FlashCallahan · 8/10 · 9 June 2012]

Loach has once again made a film about working class Britain, and filled it full of humour and heart.

But as always with his films, soon after the humour comes a lot of pain, and even at the beginning when the two lovers meet, it's under depressing circumstances, and the relationship between them never really gets any better.

Loach always manages to get great performances from all of his cast, and special mentions to Carlyle and Tomlinson, for putting in some very respectable performances. But the issue here is the class struggle, hence the title and the killing of the rats. To other classes, is this demographic of people classed as rats?

The film asks a lot of questions, and thanks to the bleakness of the film and the settings, a lot of i is justified. But then Loach shows us that we are all the same when it comes to the bottom line, and no amount of scaffolding can change that.

It packs a punch, but it's so full of rich humour and characters, the bleakness is almost lifted.

A Truly Remarkable Film, ver close to home (literaly!)

[vikingraider1 · 18 June 2003]

I first saw this film, drunk one Friday after a heavy nights drinking after work on a building site. I was then a bricklayer - a job I had done for over five years. Watching this film, it dawned on me that this was filmed in the part of London where i lived. I could truly relate to it and I would have sworn that the actors had themselves spent their lives working on sites it was so realistic. Go to any site and you will see at least one character who you could say directly related to a charater in this film. The safety aspect has been cleaned up a lot now but back then, sites were a dangerous place to work. Accidents were common and the end scenes were not in any way unrealistic.

The thing that did it for me was the portrayal of the working class of Britain. The sentiments were all there, the humour, the desparation, the sense of wanting to rise above the rest and the shattered dreams. They are all here. I would say that if anyone from abroad wanted to study the character of the British working class then they MUST see this film. It is tough, gritty and full of humour...a truly remarkable piece of film that is sadly neglected.

Buy it, Rent it, Steal it, Borrow it...whatever you do SEE IT!

Loach finds much to empathise with in Bill Jesse's semi-autobiographical screenplay

[dr_clarke_2 · 7/10 · 11 December 2022]

Ken Loach's 1991 film Riff-Raff is his sole collaboration with scriptwriter Bill Jesse, who died before the film - apparently the only one he wrote - was completed. Jesse was a former construction worker whose experiences informed his script, and it's easy to see why it appealed to Loach, since the film shows him at his most left-wing.

Riff-Raff follows Robert Carlyle's Stevie, a Glaswegian criminal recently released from prison and sleeping rough in London. He gets a job on a building site and befriends - amongst other people - Ricky Tomlinson's builder Ricky and as the film unfolds we see the trials and tribulations he and his fellow workers face, as he struggles to make ends meet, faces outrageously unfair (and now illegal) abuse of workers' rights, and deals with challenges in his personal life. There's a sense that Jesse was largely just writing about his own experiences, and that whilst he may have had an axe to grind, his objection to poor treatment workers evolved naturally out of his own time spent working in construction. Thus, the characterisation is often largely observational, and there's a great deal of humour peppered throughout the script, with Willie Ross getting all the best lines as merciless site manager Gus Siddon, who is indiscriminate in its desire to fire his workers. In the film's best known seen, Larry is found naked in the bath in the show flat when three Arab women - potential buyers - are shown round, whilst the scene with of Stevie's mother's ashes being scattered is also one of the film's genuinely funny moments.

But Loach by contrast grinds his axe hard and it's often quite wearying, even if his points are valid. His direction works against the matter-of-fact, almost philosophical nature of the script and threatens - not quite successfully - to turn Jesse's often witty, frequently moving story into a grindingly depressing tale of oppressed working classes, heroin and near-death due to dodgy scaffolding. Notably, whilst Jesse's screenplay documents petty criminality that he probably witnessed and may even have taken part in, Loach encourages performances from his actors that suggest that he thinks criminal behaviour is justified, as long as it is committed by poor working classes with socialist leanings - thus, the arson attack at the end is framed as an example of triumphant just desserts.

Nevertheless, whilst the visions of the director and the writer don't entirely elide, the end result largely works well. Loach's unswerving mission to condemn Thatcher's Britain results in a realistic grittiness that enhances a film in which, for the most part, the emphasis is on characterisation rather than plot. Thus, the audience is invited to sympathise with Stevie when his relationship with Emer McCourt's Susan - which begins after he finds and returns her handbag - spirals into disaster when she ends up developing a heroin addiction and abruptly vanishes from both the story and his life. Likewise, it is hard not be outraged when Larry is sacked out of hand for requesting safety glasses for the workers, rather than his various undiscovered transgressions, including stealing gas from the mains on the building site. Jesse let us get to know these characters for better or for worse; we like Larry, because he defends Susan when she's cruelly mocked by her audience when singing in the local pub. As good as the performances of Carlyle and McCourt are, the film's best moments are when their characters are emoting, but when less prominent characters are having small, believable conversations. And in one case, these have a dramatic pay off, when Desmonde - who talks occasionally through the film about his desire to visit Africa - is left with what look like, at the very least, life-changing injuries.

It looks great too. Loach's politics often distract from his skills behind the camera, but his habit of shooting on location, with a cinematographer who gets what he wants to achieve (in this case Barry Ackroyd, in the first of their many collaborations), is a much responsible for the realistic feel of the film as Jesse's script and the cast members' acting. And the acting is excellent, whether from familiar faces Carlyle and Tomlinson (like Jesse, a former builder, an experience he undoubtedly brought to the role) or the many less well-known actors that Loach often casts in his films. The flaws here are the incidental score by Stewart Copeland of The Police, which is striking but occasionally intrusive and hasn't aged well, and the melodramatic climax, something that Loach has fallen foul of in his several of his otherwise excellent films, including My Name is Joe. Despite this, fans of Loach will be satisfied, but even those whose political views don't align with his should be able to appreciate the qualities of Riff-Raff.

Quasi-documentary brilliant social commentary

[wjfickling · 9/10 · 8 April 2001]

I've always been astonished by Ken Loach's ability to make me forget that these are actors that I'm watching, or that this is a movie on a set, etc. The characters in this film are so real, so lifelike, that it was almost like watching a documentary. The film very wisely employs subtitles for the English dialogue, much or most of which would be unintelligible to an American audience.

Several of the reviews I have read of this film call it a comedy. Well, although there are one or two comic scenes, to me this is far from a comedy. This is a bitter and biting howl of rage against the plight of the working class in the UK. These men are used and exploited by their employers. There is no doubt that these construction sites would be cited for safety violations, or even closed down, if they were in the USA. and the owner-managers might well be prosecuted, since their willful negligence ultimately results in a death. What is lacking in the British working class, if this film is any guide, is any sense of upward mobility, any hope, any sense that I can make it out of this and find a better life. The one exception to this is the protagonist's girl friend, who is a monumentally untalented aspiring singer, and in her case we don't feel that there is much hope either.

Poignant Slice of the Work-a-Day Life

[mvassa71 · 8/10 · 13 March 2007]

This unpretentious British indie film is a rough diamond in the rough. It chronicles the lives of a handful of blue collar workers trying to survive in early 90's London. It's almost documentary in style and narrative, which lends a feeling of authenticity, which is helped also by fine performances all around. Shows the humor, frustration and dashed dreams in an unforgiving society, and it has heart. It is at times funny, heart wrenching, and touching. The accents are thick, so you may appreciate the subtitles that are on some versions. I found them distracting, so I put some tape over the bottom of the screen. I had to strain a few times to understand, but I don't think the subtitles were necessary. Well worth a watch.

97/100

[hasombrero · 9/10 · 26 August 2022]

Riff-Raff is a film that didn't particularly knock my socks off in any technical way, but still somehow achieved its own sort of excellence. It doesn't seem like your conventional movie, but rather, like a vignette of the life of its main characters. It feels more real than almost any other film I've seen, possibly a byproduct of its screenwriter being an actual construction worker. The film it pulls you in and makes the characters feel like old friends, without a particularly exciting or thrilling plot, in a way it's reminiscent of Chekhov. And though the characters have their ups and downs, the movie presents quite a few chuckles. A thoroughly intelligent and genuine film, brimming with social commentary without bashing you over the head with it.

Everyone else who reviewed this either are computer controlled A.I or did not watch this movie

[sparkss-11610 · 2/10 · 19 June 2016]

Well what can I say? this film is appalling, the acting is putrid(particularly the Irish character who appears to forget her characters role mid way through the film) apart from Robert Carlyle as the Scottish character is quite good among other smaller big name roles who then made a name for themselves either prior or afterwards otherwise this movie is terrible with major plot-points not being revealed, unnecessary scenes, bad gags and bad script-writing as if they just improvised. Besides to that it was wrote in memory of some one if this was made in tribute of me, I must have really been hated or a terrible script- writer if this was the fruit of my labour! All in all I think my review is suitable for a film of this caliber Q.E.D

Tough in the trenches.

[Doctor_Bombay · 21 April 1999]

In some ways I felt as though I'd died and gone to heaven the first time I saw Riff Raff, an out and out honest look at working class men of varied, and sometimes dubious, backgrounds connected through their work on a construction sight in London.

The cast of characters defines the term 'mixed bag'. I couldn't help but think of a half dozen or so Archie Bunkers on the job site, each one with their own set of priorities, talking about the most important thing in the world, to no one but himself. It all brings a smile to my face.

Our closest look is at Stevie (Robert Carlyle of "The Full Monty"), a former petty thief, who works with a crew converting condos for the nouveau riche, while he's forced to break into an abandoned building just to find a place to squat.

Director Ken Loach expertly focuses on the lower class in Britain (witness his brilliant 1999 feature-"My Name is Joe") where the honesty laced with humor of his viewpoint tends to provide humanity to an otherwise ignored sect. To shine a bit of light on an otherwise dismal existence as it may.

Loach's characters are never overly redemptive: they don't hit the lottery; aren't left millions by a dead aunt; or marry a rich suitor. And the ending here is a bit short, trite. But they usually come through the film a little stronger having weathered their travails, feeling a little better about themselves. I dare say we come through feeling a little better about ourselves as well.

Not a good time to be a contractor in the UK

[jordondave-28085 · 10/10 · 31 October 2023]

(1990) Riff- Raff DRAMA

The film, the Queen of England does not want people to see!! Like some of Mike Leigh's films with it's subtle messages about the low class, this is a no holds barred social commentary film about society with a nice story in the middle. And is also one of the most important British films in movie history about unsafe practices amongst it's citizens. I have no idea how this kind of society is like right now in 2010 but at the time of when this film was made about it's citizens rises a lot of questions about not what should be done BUT what has to be done along time ago!!! This is also one of Robert Carlyle's early film gems before hitting it big with "Trainspotting".

Misfits or Misplaced?

[Rocky-UK · 18 January 2006]

Riff Raff is one of Loach's more humorous depictions of working class life. That said it's still not comedy, it a melodrama with political overtones.

What it's really about is the collapse of the working classes due to the Thatcherite policies introduced in the 1980's. The collapse of the power of the trade unions and the incorporation of capitalisation and 'big business'.

These workers are struggling to live below the breadline, working in unsafe conditions and squatting wherever they can.

It's a tragedy of circumstance really but there are moments of romance and humour provided mostly by Ricky Tomlinson. Taking a bath in a show house. Hilarious.

Criminally underrated

[Alba_Of_Smeg · 28 August 2020]

Riff-Raff is so realistic in its depiction of British working class conditions in the building industry of the time. Hard working lads living hard lives making poor money and working for shifty cost cutting employers. More than that though, Loach has filled the story with believable characters and has them speaking realistically with real local accents and absolutely zero political correctness.

Hats off to whoever was in charge of the casting. Standout performances from Robert Carlyle and Ricky Tomlinson but to be fair the entire cast were believable in their roles. There's very authentic feel to the film, almost like watching a documentary instead. Criminally Underrated.

How you expect cowboy builders to be

[thecatcanwait · 18 November 2011]

Ken Loach doing his usual social documenting of working class nitty grittiness.

It's "Boys from the Blackstuff" meets "Auf Wiedersehen Pet"; indignant about the selfish "Me Me Me" property developer greed of the Thatcher years – but leavened by typical Scouse (and Manc) sarcasm, and softened with a short if not so sweet romance.

Robert Carlyle is Stevie, fresh out of jail, and having a go at life outside Scotland; gets taken on as a construction worker; is found an empty council flat to squat; is quickly shacking up with Susie, a fragile, troubled, Irish singer. He's soon back into his petty thieving ways; knocking off machinery from the site. "Labourin is rubbish, boxer shorts is better (selling of)" seems to be the extent of his aspiration. Stevie and Susie are both "unstable" characters so arguing is bound to be happening; he's having to drag her out of bed: "Depression is for the middle classes – the rest of us have got an early start in the morning". Then he gets news his mothers died – so he's off up to Scotland for the funeral. Cue a black comedy scene at the crematorium with inept swinging of urn – mother ash thrown all over the party of mourners.

Returning, Stevie is just in time to see Susie sticking a needle up her arm. It's at this point Robert Carlyle breaks out into a warm up version of Begbie from Trainspotting: nut-ting people in the gob, stamping on their wotsits etc. And as for Susie: She's dumped. End of. No sympathy with junkie smack-heads has Stevie. Or Begbie. Or even Robert Carlyle.

Ricky Tomlinson is in the film too – as a mouthy Trade Union sympathiser, his Commie vitriol redeemed by sarky gags and loud laughing; a bit like a younger version of Jim Royle, minus the beard.

Towards the end i was thinking: someone's gonna be falling off this dodgy scaffolding without his tin hat on in a minute – and sure enough, he was. And Them Barstewards are gonna have to pay for that. We need some Natural Justice here. Lets burn the whole flipping lot down. Any volunteers? Yeah. Stevie will do it. With glee.

The film is unaffected in its down to earth portrayal of the working class bloke: the thieving cheating lying lazy barsteward that skives around as cheap casual labour on building sites while fiddling the dole type of working class bloke. The type that doesn't really give a monkeys. As long as it gets paid. Even if it doesn't get paid enough. Cus the company employing it is an exploitative cheating lying greedy barsteward too.

Its a right riff raffy racket is the Building Trade. Seems to be the message. Something i – and all of us – knows already. So nothing new there then. But my – and your – cynicism will get a nice pat on its back.

I wouldn't want any of this lot building a house for me.