Brassed Off!
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ewan McGregor, Jim Carter, Pete Postlethwaite, Stephen Tompkinson, Tara FitzgeraldDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax
Movie Reviews of Brassed Off!
Movie Review: A serious film whose honest heart makes it worth seeing
Summary: 5 Stars
Unfortunately, this movie came out around the time of "The Full Monty" and it also deals with the unemployed in dying industries in Britain. Where "The Full Monty" is funny "Brassed Off" is serious and wrenching. No punches pulled here. It avoids bathos because it keeps it eyes focused on the bewildered pain of the coal miners and their families. "Monty" became a huge hit and "Brassed Off" went away largely unwatched. It deserved better.
The story is set in the time of Margaret Thatcher. Many of the old government owned industries were drowning the government and bleeding taxpayers. They were privatized or closed. This caused terribly painful dislocations (as did the much needed recession in the US in the early 1980s). Through this movie we get to see how these dislocations crushed everyday folks caught in the moving parts of these changes. I come from a working class background and have seen the pain of recession and dislocation up close and personal. It hurts and really fine people who work hard and just want to get through life are often damaged severely.
The Grimley colliery (a colliery is coal mine and attendant structures) has been in operation for a long time. One of the traditions of many large working class operations is a brass band whose players are drawn from the workers. In the United States, community brass bands were quite common until WWII. The Grimley band (there is a real life Grimethorpe Colliery band that plays the music in the film) has a long and proud tradition and in the movie is led by Danny (played by the fabulous Pete Postlethwaite). It even has its fans and groupies who dye their hair the same shade of purple as the band uniforms.
The music in the film is a wonderful device and only partly because the band music sounds so good. Art is always an extravagance. How much do you sacrifice in time and money for it? That is always the question and the balance. As I say, my parents worked hard as I was growing up. However, my Dad sang beautifully and the love he and his friends had for music rubbed off on me. Heaven knows the price my own wife and children have paid for my devotion to that art.
Danny's son, Phil (poignantly done by Stephen Tompkinson), plays trombone and is a bit of a bumbler. He supplements his income for his family by being a rather inept clown as well. There is a beautiful but awful side story in the film about Phil's need of a new trombone and his struggle to balance that against the needs of his family and yet what price art? His wife bears the cost of his devotion in wrenching ways. Phil is the point on which all the weight of this film bears to crushing effect.
A young Ewan McGregor plays Andy. For me, Andy points to the whole heart of the problem. Andy is a very bright young man. He really does understand what is going on. However, he has always felt like a loser, so he turns himself into one. When I see the passivity and sense of entitlement in the soon to be redundant miners, I frankly get a bit frustrated. No power on earth can stop economic dislocations from happening. Oh, they can be delayed, but a greater cataclysm will follow. And why should other taxpayers be forever burdened with providing a subsidized living for an inefficient industry? Yes, the Grimley pit was making money, or so the report showed.
However, none of these people had enough of a financial education to put the pit in the broader context to see if it made sense to operate one pit. This is what bothers me. We have to do a better job of preparing people to make changes in their lives. We have to equip them with a better understanding of economics and finance. Of course, that will make them more expensive, but they will be more expensive because they will be able to create more value. Being more flexible with the ability to provide more value is a good thing.
I won't get into the whole drama of the movie except to say that it is honest and touching. The politics are quite anti-Thatcherite, which is appropriate for the characters. However, I think the filmmakers were pushing their own agenda a bit through the voice of the characters and that is a tad bothersome. Thatcher was no more responsible for the economic dislocations than gravity would be if you fell off a roof. But I guess you have to blame someone and she was certainly convenient.
In any case, a fine movie. The language is a bit rough and you might (might) have a bit of a trouble with the working class accents. I encourage you to see it.
Summary of Brassed Off!
Take The Full Monty, add a sharper emotional edge, and replace the strutting strippers with a dignified British band. That's the essence of Brassed Off, a bittersweet gem released in 1996, a year before its more popular (and Oscar-nominated) counterpart. In the Yorkshire town of Grimley, there has always been a coal mine, just as for the last 111 years there has been a brass band, and it seems that Danny (the wondrous Pete Postlethwaite) has been the director for every one of those years. Tory economic policies, however, are closing coal mines around the country in favor of nuclear power, and Grimley appears to be next on the list. Danny is unfazed by the threat, claiming, "It's music that matters." But some of the men are about to quit the band until the appearance of Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald at her most radiant), who dazzles the all-male group (including old flame Andy, played by Ewan McGregor) first with her beauty, then with her flügelhorn playing. The new member gives the band a boost as they continue to perform and compete, but closure remains very real, as director Mark Herman (Little Voice) accompanies the band's performances (played with gusto by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band) with scenes of angry labor-management confrontations and family strife. In this context, some of the characters claim that the music is an irresponsible form of escapism. It becomes clear, however, from a touching performance of "Danny Boy" to the stirring conclusion at Royal Albert Hall, that music is an expression of the human spirit, a bit of beauty and sanity in a harsh world. With defiance, the band can play "Land of Hope and Glory," even when the land offers them neither. --David HoriuchiSimilar DVD Movies
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