Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

wilsr I stuck this one for thirty minutes, until I could take no more.Is it a comedy? No, it's not in the slightest amusing.Drama? Nope.Romance? Definitely no.SciFi? Possibly, the characters don't seem to inhabit any of the planets I'm familiar with.Seriously, this is a terrible effort. Long, meandering shots which lead nowhere. Dreadful people with accents that are incomprehensible. Situations that have absolutely no relevance to whatever plot there may be. Cuts from one venue to another with no indication what connection they have.The cinematography is quite reasonable. That's all, folks.

Theo Robertson On the surface this suggests it's going to be a very enjoyable film . Robert Carlyle stars in a British take on the spaghetti western and the opening scene is a good hook where an eccentric Ricky Tomlinson appears on a daytime TV chat show as a singing cowboy . Make no mistake Britain still leads the world when it comes to eccentrics and the film's early stages continues in this light hearted vein Being a British film however it can't sustain the opening and the more the film continues the more and more unengaging it becomes . I don't know if it's this viewer rather than Shane Meadows who is to blame but I found myself becoming more and more disinterested as the story unravelled . The fact that once again I felt I was watching something that was more of an overproduced production for television rather than a cinematic film didn't help either In short this is another Brit flick that resembles the archive footage of the early space program . By this I mean the rocket boosters are fired , the structure slowly rises above the ground , the audience sits open mouthed waiting for something wonderful to happen then the whole structure comes crashing down giving way to a sense of anti-climax

Tim Kidner I generally like Shane Meadows, his honest writing and depiction of what early 21st century average life in Britain is actually like, is both appealing and refreshing.This one (I re-watched after many years and seen all his later work) is just a bit of a tangled mess (hence my summary title). It was great to watch the great Kathy Burke in a dominant (yes!) role now that she's concentrating on theatre direction these days. Also, her screen hubbie, a rather ridiculous wannabe country singer in the shape of Ricky Tomlinson.Robert Carlyle plays to form as a real piece of ***t who is after getting his ex back. I soon found his constant shouting, swearing and nastiness wearying and Ryhs Ifans' counter example, as poor Shirley Henderson's dopey, lily-livered 'boyfriend' equally annoying. I wanted to shout out loud 'forget them both', but this being drama, the opposite happens of course.The lighter moments, I suppose were intended to punctuate this domestic misery with an air of humanity. But, most of the time, they look stupidly careless, leaving you unsure whether they were intentional, or not. I did like the overall premise, especially at the end, when the subversive comparison to the classic western becomes apparent, though the setting is a modern English city's housing estate over a hundred years later. The Sierra Cosworth being the equivalent of a wild stallion...?Meadow's work, though, is always of much merit and the fact that he has gotten himself a niche and etched himself a position on that elite panel of independent Brit directors whose work is admired equally by critics and public alike, is to be much admired. It also means that this quite early offering from him is still above average.

profhound I'm a huge fan of British films and was so looking forward to Once Upon a Time in the Midlands when I first read about it. It sounded like a sure thing: fun storyline, fabulous cast (Ricky Tomlinson, Kathy Burke, Rhys Ifans, Shirley Henderson Robert Carlyle), all actors I love. There are a few good moments with Tomlinson and Burke, as well as Jimmy's bumbling Glaswegian gang. The standout actor is Finn Atkins, who plays Henderson's daughter. Also worth noting is the soundtrack, which, alas, is apparently unavailable for purchase.And somehow, all of these promising components resulted in something I would've thought an impossibility: a British comedy that lacks charm. Try as I might, I could not care about any of the characters. Henderson's Shirley is whiny and childish, and we're not given nearly enough information on why she's torn between her two equally-immature suitors. Her current boyfriend, Dek (Ifans) is a sweet sad sack, a milquetoast who had me bouncing between wanting to turn away from his relentless pathos to wondering why on earth he's still interested in Shirley after she turns down his marriage proposal on TV, lies to him about where she's going so she can see Jimmy, lets Jimmy move into her house, etc.Jimmy is depressingly hopeless, with none of the entertaining qualities that keep you watching Robert Carlyle's usual dodgy-boy portrayals (e.g., Jo Jo, Begbie, Gaz). There's nothing like that here, not even a hint of the boyish charm that often reels naive or insecure women into relationships with guys like this. He's the consummate unlovable loser who refuses to grow up. He's not particularly dangerous, he has no depth. Like the rest of the characters in OUTM, I never feel I'm given a reason to care about what happens to him. It is to Carlyle's immense credit that he insisted they remove a rape scene from the script. (A rape scene, can you imagine?? This movie was depressing enough without adding that.) Jimmy may be a lot of things, but he never strikes me as a rapist.Finally -- aside from the soundtrack, barren streets and a few long shots -- why oh why didn't the writers expand more on the "spaghetti western" theme? What fun they could've had with that. My disappointment with OUTM may sound a little strident. I guess I feel the impatience of a parent with a gifted child who's not doing his best; with all that potential, I expected more.