Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Gary
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Darin
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
cageybird
I first watched this when it came out in 1997. It was pretty powerful to me, and I just couldn't watch it again for a long time. I was young and dumb then, but all I could remember was my boyfriend at the time fell asleep and I bawled my eyes out.So this week I finally geared up to watch it again...And it smashed my heart into pieces again, with no less impact... This film is so hard to write about. Tin-Pot dictators who are kings of their own castles, and the women who support them.... What broke my heart was our 'heroine' played by Kathy Burke, the victim of her nasty, violent husband... He beats the sh*t out of her, she throws him out, he begs to come back, and you are just f**king cheering her on.... The next scene, he's back, all's good, no big reconciliation scene... This could have been the movie of my childhood... Drama, police, strength, followed by some mystery process and everything back to 'normal'. I felt like Oldman was watching my childhood then put it on screen.... This film has stayed with me for 20 years and I have never seen a truer portrayal of casual domestic violence. Kathy Burke was f**king out of this world as a strong, yet ultimately trapped woman, and Ray Winstone was a tour-de-force, literally, as a man who doesn't understand his own motives, who never will..... For me this is THE definitive British domestic violence film
tomgillespie2002
When we are introduced to the various foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, poverty-stricken characters in Gary Oldman's one and only directorial credit, Nil By Mouth, they are gathered in a working club telling stories about people and events we are not privy to. Any establishing character introductions would betray the authenticity of Oldman's searing drama. These are real people, or seem like they are, so we get to endure their mundane and often repulsive conversations as if we've known them for years. And it feels like we have. The product of their social class means they're stuck in their routines; the men indulging in coke-fuelled benders, and the women are just happy to be out of the house.Dedicated to his father, Nil by Mouth is clearly autobiographical, or at least based on Oldman's experiences growing up in a council flat in South East London. Focusing essentially on three main characters - Ray (Ray Winstone), a booze-addled, violent abuser, Valerie (Kathy Burke), his bullied and terrorised wife, and Valerie's brother Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles), a young heroin-addict relying on his mother Janet (Laila Morse) to fund his habit - the film doesn't really tell a clear-cut story, but instead immerses you in it's environment. Dialogue is fast, naturalistic and often hard to follow, and long scenes often do little other than force you to listen to these people's everyday ramblings.Anyone looking for a pleasant experience may do better to look elsewhere, as no punches are pulled. Plenty are thrown, however, as Ray's jealousy over a man he sees Valerie playing pool with - innocently - erupts into a horrific scene of domestic violence. Even more heartbreaking is the next scene, as her mother sees her daughter's battered face for the first time and must listen to her cover story, being fully aware of Ray's violence tendencies. Laila Morse (an anagram of the Italian phrase for 'my sister') is Gary Oldman's sister, and although she had no formal acting experience before the film, she may just be the best thing in it. Her expression of helplessness at the sight of her son shooting up in the back of her van is incredibly powerful.As the film goes on, we do eventually learn more about these characters. Ray may be the clear-cut monster on the surface, but there is some sympathy to be had. In a scene following a particularly self-destructive bender, Ray explains to his friend Mark (Jamie Foreman) that he had no love from his father. Beneath the bulldog exterior lies a rather pathetic and self-pitying man, unable to communicate anything to his wife to the point where they seem to exist in different rooms in their cramped flat. Not since John Cassavetes has a film so successfully portrayed the tragedy of male machismo. With Eric Clapton's wonderfully bluesy score blaring throughout, the film is drenched in atmosphere while maintaining the sense of reality. It's by no means an easy watch, but Nil by Mouth is cinema at it's most raw.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
dixxjamm
...and when I say reality,I mean just that. A universal reality. I've only been to London once for a concert and I stayed there for 3 days, so I'm not at all qualified to say that this is a slice of proletarian London life, and yet I felt the unequivocal and bland smell of real life right from the first frame.And that's because Gary Oldman manages to capture the universal drama of human life and emotion.He manages that through some really uninteresting dialog, some ordinary issues (poverty,macho-British style,hopelessness,addiction,abuse) and almost no cinematic thrills or gimmicks. The problem is that we are so used to those cinematic artifices that a movie like this one comes across as a flat line on a hospital machine. Not even when we have a climatic scene of Ray savagely beating his wife, I didn't feel terrified or like turning away in disgust because the by then the movie painstakingly tells the viewer that that's how it is and there is nothing to do about it, in other words, you're already emotionally numb and somehow not involved.Oldman considers this a semi-autobiographical movie. Add to that the way it is presented to us and it sheds some light as to why he's such a gifted, unconventional and unique actor, he clearly takes his energy, feelings and life experience from some unusual places. Absolutely shattering stuff.
kj-b
A brutally honest, gritty, painful reflection on working class life in england. It begins as you would expect any film about working class citizens to begin... in the local, run down pub. But the 2 hour film takes you through honest and heart wrenching material which makes the text, as a whole, incredibly painful to watch. The characters are broken, yet we form a well rounded understanding of them while we watch the turbulent events of their lives unfold. The sympathy and distaste we feel for each character stems from a completely honest representation of them (and their situation) fed to us so truthfully by Gary Oldman. The story, whilst controversial in it's nature, makes for an interesting and turbulent ride through the back streets of London proving us with previews of drugs, violence a domestic abuse. A must see for any serious film lover. Not to be taken lightly.
