Reviews

'The Crow Road' came out at a time when gritty dramas were flavour of the month like 'The Lakes', 'This Life', 'Shockers' etc. but, for me, this was the big stand-out. Mainly because it was so well adapted from the book and because of the great cast. Joseph McFadden, who plays the lead (Prentice McHoan), was relatively unknown at the time, but more than held his own alongside established actors like Bill Paterson & Peter Capaldi. Also the young support cast of Dougray Scott, Valerie Edmond & Simone Bendix play their parts very well. Dougray Scott, in particular, is perfectly cast as Prentice's swaggering, comedian brother.

The director keeps the suspense and mystery going throughout, allowing the story to come together a little at a time, leading on to an explosive finale that I found genuinely surprising.

I don't think I've seen anything else like it.

10/10 Outstanding.

After reading some of the art student-esquire reviews & writing some negative comments on the board for Gerry and getting slated by all the 'intellects' for doing so, I felt the need to write a review for this 'movie'.

Someone who reviewed this movie on here describes it as a 'masterpiece' & 'A profoundly stirring odyssey'. Read the rest of his reviews and you'll see other reviews of artsy movies and you'll know where the guy is coming from.

Please !.... This movie is basically just two guys who get lost in the desert and you watch them do.... well pretty much nothing for the rest of the movie. There's a couple of half-hearted 'action' sequences that take up about 10 minutes of the film, in total. The rest is just the two of them walking amongst some pretty spectacular scenery with some eerie music in the background.

There's also very little dialogue, so little, it probably wouldn't fill half a page. So by the end of the movie, you don't really care whether they live or die. Because you know so little about the characters and their background, you don't really feel any sympathy towards them or feel any emotional attachment to them whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong it is a very well shot movie and the use of natural scenery and light is breathtaking, but as a result, parts of this movie feel more like a scenery-photographer's exhibition than an actual work of cinema. The eerie music is the only other thing in this movie that is well done.

So, a word of warning: if, like myself, you are an average movie watcher looking to watch something different, don't bother. At the end of the movie, you'll just be saying to yourself: 'Is that it ?' or 'That is the most boring & pointless piece of nonsense I've ever seen'

But, if you fancy yourself as a bit of an intellect or are an art/film student you'll probably enjoy spending hours trying to find some hidden meaning in this and take great pleasure calling all the people 'below' you, mindless dummies for not enjoying it.

3/10 - Would have been less if it weren't for the music & scenery shots.

I watched this during my unemployed stoner days at the age of 17-18 and it is still the funniest thing I've ever seen. Steph & Nigel were a great double-act and their skits in between the video reviews were hilarious.

Filmed in Glagow. The 2 funniest bits I can remember is when Steph is seriously reviewing a film while Nige takes his trousers down in the background. At the end of the review, Nige bends over next to Steph, sticks a fag in his arse and says: "Got a light Steph ?".

The other one was just a wee skit. A young woman walks past the Vids Shop on crutches. Nigel runs out and boots them out from under her !

I know, both these skits sound stupid, but it was just the way the 2 of them done it. Steph was very deadpan and Nigel was nuts and some of the faces he could pull made the stupidest jokes & acts a lot funnier. And to see a fag sticking out from someone's arse was just genius.

Just a shame Vids didn't run for longer. 2 series I think it ran for from 98-99. It just says 98 on here, but I'm sure it ran for longer.

Also a shame that these 2 guys didn't make it on to something for all to see.

I can still remember waking my Mum every week up with my laughing at 2am on a Friday morning.

10/10

Easily the best film I've seen at the cinema.

I was glued to this for the full 201 minutes. So much so that I held in a pee for 2 hours of it, because I didn't want to miss anything ! This blew me away so much, that I was completely drained after watching it and I felt strange when I left the cinema because for 201 minutes it felt like the rest of the world had stopped while the movie was on. It's the best of the three films and was worth the numbness in my a55 afterwards.

If you haven't already, watch this at the cinema, because when you watch it on video, you'll regret not going to the cinema to see it.

Epic.