6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The story of Stevie, a construction worker, and his girlfriend, an unemployed pop singer, serves to show the living conditions of the British poor class.
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Emer McCourt, Jim R. Coleman (II), George Moss (II), Ricky TomlinsonDrama | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is currently available as part of the double feature 2 by Ken Loach: Riff-Raff / Raining Stones.
Despite a long career that has resulted in several prestigious awards (including this year’s Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film
Festival), Ken Loach continues to be oddly underappreciated and in fact largely unknown on this side of the pond. His class conscious social realism
would seem to be a perfect fit in a nation noted for its supposed lack of “caste” strata, but Loach’s films have generally been consigned to the Art
House circuit over here and have therefore perhaps not had the wider recognition they deserve. Those curious about Loach had a recent opportunity
to experience one of his 1970s outings when Cohen Film Collection released
Black Jack, and now Twilight Time has released a double feature of two relatively more recent films from Loach’s enduring
oeuvre, 1991’s Riff-Raff and 1993’s Raining Stones, both dealing with disaffected lower class folks caught in the vagaries of
less than desirable working conditions or in fact unemployment. Both films offer an unsurprisingly dour perspective on the disastrous British
economy of that era, but as with most Loach films, there are glimmers of hope scattered throughout the ashes of these lives.
Riff-Raff is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. Shot on 16mm, the results here are mostly true to the source, but come with some inherent issues and other areas of admittedly slight concern. The image here is soft and extremely grainy, as should be expected from the smaller millimeter format, but colors also aren't especially vivid, with flesh tones often leaning toward pale pink. Contrast is slightly inconsistent, looking quite good in some brightly lit outdoor scenes, but at times appearing murky in shaded interior environments. The excess grain doesn't quite resolve naturally some of the time, clumping into splotches that occasionally have a yellow tinge to them. Given reasonable expectations of the inherently lo-fi ambience of Riff-Raff, this is a solid if unspectacular looking transfer.
While Riff-Raff's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track has no inherent issues in terms of fidelity or damage to worry about, it's still going to be problematic for some listeners due to the very heavy accents of almost all the major characters, whether that be Stevie's brogue or the thick Cockney patois of most of the other construction workers. Everything is more or less clear given the context of any given scene, but this is certainly one release that could have benefited substantially from subtitles.
Perhaps too relentlessly depressive to really connect fully with people who want "entertainment" from their films, Riff-Raff is still a compelling character study and is a scathing indictment of the shallowness of some of Thatcher's economic policies. Carlyle is fantastic in this piece, and fans of the actor will no doubt want to check out this early starring performance. Technical merits here are good if not perfect, and Riff-Raff comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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1960
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2017
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1984
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1985
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1942
1920