One of Ken Loach's weakest films (the only ones that are even worse are "Ladybird, Ladybird" and "Carla's Song"). A mawkish story about a pathetic pushover loser who gets some valuable advice from a ghost of a French football player. The ending (when our "hero" gets even with a gangster bully with the help of his football hooligans friends) is ridiculous, because Ken Loach obviously thinks it is very Marxist to use masked mobs to terrorize people into submission (he's actually right about that), but he obviously doesn't realize the full "communism is fascism" implication of his own "solution". An imperfect work, with a very boring first half. Eric Cantona's scenes are weak. The climax is overblown and lacks credibility. In the real world, it's the other guy who would have the masked mob on his side. Like in all Ken Loach's bad films (fortunately, bad films being a small minority of his otherwise fascinating oeuvre), any notion of subtlety is thrown out the window.
June 6, 2010
Looking For Eric (2010) *
One of Ken Loach's weakest films (the only ones that are even worse are "Ladybird, Ladybird" and "Carla's Song"). A mawkish story about a pathetic pushover loser who gets some valuable advice from a ghost of a French football player. The ending (when our "hero" gets even with a gangster bully with the help of his football hooligans friends) is ridiculous, because Ken Loach obviously thinks it is very Marxist to use masked mobs to terrorize people into submission (he's actually right about that), but he obviously doesn't realize the full "communism is fascism" implication of his own "solution". An imperfect work, with a very boring first half. Eric Cantona's scenes are weak. The climax is overblown and lacks credibility. In the real world, it's the other guy who would have the masked mob on his side. Like in all Ken Loach's bad films (fortunately, bad films being a small minority of his otherwise fascinating oeuvre), any notion of subtlety is thrown out the window.
