The hopelessness of the characters, the sparseness of the locations and the bleakness of the plot all go towards making this a very well-made no-thrills drama. The film plays a real blinder by making the young teenage brother the main character in the story, and rather than have a soapy, watered down, immature vision of everything around him, we get an honest and streetwise teenage depiction of a pretty depressing Glasgow.
The film really benefits from this realism, and although characters like Malky Johnson threaten to overflow into creeezy Scottish caricature, it manages to stay on the right side of believable by getting rid of him before the end.
As you would expect, the accents are heavy, but any Brit should follow it easily as long as their recording off the TV is a good one. Mine wasn't unfortunately, but I got by.
The film really benefits from this realism, and although characters like Malky Johnson threaten to overflow into creeezy Scottish caricature, it manages to stay on the right side of believable by getting rid of him before the end.
As you would expect, the accents are heavy, but any Brit should follow it easily as long as their recording off the TV is a good one. Mine wasn't unfortunately, but I got by.