Rating:
Cast: Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw, Roger Allam
Director: Ken Loach
Ken Loach delivers an unabashed audience pleasing, absolute cracker of a film with The Angels' Share which is as charming and memorable as it is funny.
From its opening montage of young offenders being sentenced to community work, you wonder if the trademark social realism is about to pierce the relatively light proceedings.
But the master of miserabilism on the council estate delivers such a tonal shift early on that nearly gives you whiplash and unleashes corking tale from Scotland about an apparent no hoper called Robbie (Brannigan), who's running out of chances, that it'd be churlish to resist.
Just when you think Robbie's story will see him beaten by family rivalries and forced to leave his new son and girlfriend Leonie, a second chance and a gaggle of misfit Scottish colleagues end up on a caper comedy rife with pathos, heart and humour as they work to steal a rare Scottish whisky and change all their lives.
Loach works with leads who're unknowns and thus garners great performances from them as he draws this tale together.
The Angels' Share is about second chances, friendships and whisky - you'd be foolish to miss this wee dram of a film; it's an absolute ripper.