|
Borstal BoyRating:
Release Date: 15 October, 2002 Retail Price: $29.99 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $3.00! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
Borstal Boy Reviews
Boring and dumb
Stopped @ 20 minutes. I lost interest quickly. Maybe it's just the period--the world wars were terribly boring, full of scarcity, uncertainty and unhappiness, unless you were in the thick of action...
The Irish were neutral during WW2 and continued fighting Britain. If Britain had lost, and Hitler conquered England and next Ireland, it is interesting to speculate on the likely fate of the Irish civilian population. It is also interesting to contrast the methods of England with the methods of Germany, and think of how the S.S. might have dealt with the I.R.A. In occupied Europe there was often a ratio used. If a fighter killed a German, then 10, or maybe 100, civilians would be pulled at random from any village and summarily executed. And if that did not produce the desired results then the ratio could, of course, be escalated, with no cap on the maximum.
This film depicts the prison guards and police as "brutal," but it is difficult to believe that, and difficult to sympathize with anybody like this kid, caught red-handed smuggling a freaking bomb into civilian areas.
Instead of sympathizing with the kid and hating the policemen, like we are supposed to do, I found myself sympathizing with the "mean, bad" policemen, who were doing their job protecting their country from a cowardly and cold-hearted villain.
Three stars for a fair flick but misleading
Like most movies based on "a true story", this one is well-done for many reasons on its own but as far as who the main character is and what they do or did in real life, I think it may mislead people. (Erin Brokovich, etc.)
I've read Borstal Boy at least 10 times (along with "Confessions of an Irish Revolutionary", "Brendan Behan's Island", etc. and all of his plays, two of which I have participated in) and I feel the movie doesn't even come close to the enjoyment that you can find in the book, which usually seems to be the case in movies based on books. What bothers me is there are only small hints in the book to Behan's so-called homosexuality and speculation on its importance in his life in general. Maybe he was bisexual because it is sure that he liked women. But who cares, really? To play up that angle and make this a "gay" movie was a mistake. There are so many interesting issues in Behan's telling of the story about friendship, flirtation, loyalty, disloyalty, the law, being Irish, honor, work, having fun as a young man, being funny in general and singing. The "real" story (or at least told and intended by Behan in the book) is so much richer, more beautiful and interesting. To believe that the movie reflects who he was and his life reduces him to an object in a "politically correct" flick which, I think, cheapens his memory. Long live Breandan O Beachain!
More Customer Reviews (13 total)
You like Borstal Boy?
|
