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Wonderful character development!

Disapointment

Best movie ever!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This film about "Grimley" and its band is loosely based on the experiences of the miners and musicians of Grimethorpe, a small village in South Yorkshire whose economy was heavily dependent on coal mining. Characters in Brassed Off continue to feel the effects of the 1984 strike that tried and failed to prevent the closure of 20 mines. The bitterness that arose between those who continued to strike and those who returned to work still remains. In the period reflected in this movie (1992), most miners were less militant, and were willing to accept mine closure and severance pay, rather than an assessment of the mine's potential profitability as a private venture. After the mine was closed, Grimethorpe suffered from a loss of jobs and hope. All of this is reflected in the movie.The announcement of the mine's closing came just days before the 1992 National Brass Band competition. The fate of the local band after the mine is closed is the central question posed by the film. The Grimethorpe Colliery Band (which plays all the music heard in the movie) was one of many sponsored by various British communities and industries, and one of just a small handful of these bands that have been perennial contenders for national honors. In the years since 1970, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band has won the National Championships 4 times, the ITV Granada Band of the Year title 6 times, and the UK Brass in Concert Championship 14 times. Its success was partly based on recruitment of such super stars as Alan Morrison (its top cornet player) who was deemed the best lead cornet in Brass in Concert Championships in each of the five years from 1990 to 1994. (Morrison has said that his "only regret in life" is that he left the band too early and thus did not appear in the film.) His successor, Shaun Randall (who plays the cornet solo on the William Tell Overture in the movie) was named best lead cornet in the 1995 Brass Concert Championships. Although the Grimethorpe mine was closed, the Grimethorpe Colliery band has carried on. In November 2017, one organization ranked it the 10th best brass band in the world.Apart from the fate of the band, Brassed Off focuses on the personal situations of a few main characters. Incredibly, the publisher described the movie as a "delightfully entertaining comedy." This is emphatically not a comedy—unless you are inclined to chuckle at families being evicted from their homes, victims of black lung collapsing in the street, or an angry man cursing God in a church. The film stresses the tension between Danny, the band leader who considers music more important than anything, and his trombonist son Phil, who seems likely to lose everything with the closure of the mine. There is also the ambiguous romance between Gloria, who has returned to town in a mysterious role, and her old admirer Andy. Pete Postlewaite (Danny) and Stephen Tompkinson (Phil) are especially convincing. Tompkinson's role is perhaps the most challenging in the movie. Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor effectively portray the on-again, off-again, relationship between Gloria and Andy. (Viewers may recognize "Harry" as Jim Carter who played the butler "Carson" in Downton Abbey.) Although 80 per cent of the miners voted to accept closure of the mine and take severance pay, Brassed Off might lead viewers to sympathize with those who wanted to keep the mine open. But, work in the mines was not an unmixed blessing—like Danny, many miners suffered from various respiratory diseases. The movie blames mine closures on Margaret Thatcher and the Tories. Actually, the reduction in British coal production had been continuous since the 1910s, and cannot be attributed to particular leaders or political parties. The decline of British manufacturing, the development of new home heating technologies, and the switch to cheaper imported coal and to cleaner and renewable forms of energy were contributing factors. But, in a broader perspective, the film relates, not just to miners, but to the plight of all workers who are being rendered "redundant" by modern technology.

When you make the decision to watch a film that isn't a mass media marketed product like Hollywood's trite catalog, you risk seeing a stinka', or finding a gem. Although this film runs through the very many clichés of prose one liners, soap-situations, & predictable outcomes, it makes up for this with conviction, solid acting, political castigation, moral bearing & the ever moving ramifications of music. As I grow old, I have noticed how cruel life is & how corrupt our captors have become. This film's greatest irony is that they intended 'music to appear commonplace; a bit of entertainment whilst more important things are happening'. You sense this is the way it was written. However, as this film ages, it's become apparent that Governments destroy people's hopes & dreams all the time. This has now become commonplace, & the music represents the constant accumulating working class heroes that have fallen to vain man's greed. It gives the film new meaning. It's a shame that at the end of the film, they still insist this is about "Coal Mines Closing". It's maybe a bit short sighted of British film makers to abstain from giving it a broader meaning. The script isn't without it's typical British frivolity of course, & most of the time it's non-intrusive thank goodness! The course language may be a bit loud for some as is the stereotypes, but given the time & setting it's not unrealistic. I think it's this that gives the film it's lower score & yet it's vital to lighten up an otherwise dejecting story. Either way, you begin to feel for these characters, but from a purely artistic point of view, this can be a very touching watch! All the musicians I know admit that "life got in the way of music". This sounds preposterous to your average Joe, but people come & go; music remains & can out live all of us. So will this film no doubt!

BRASSED OFF is a 1996 movie from England - written and directed by Mark Herman - in that tradition of those movies about the working classes attempting to better themselves: THE FULLY MONTY, BILLY ELLIOT and MADE IN DAGENHAM being other prominent examples. At the time it seemed like one of the last nails in the coffin of the outgoing Tory government.It's set in a real-looking Yorkshire mining town a few years after the 1984/85 miners strike, where the local coal mine is about to be closed. The miners (Ewan McGregor, Jim Carter, Stephen Tompkinson and others) find solidarity in their brass band under their conductor - retired miner Danny (the late Pete Postlewaite in his finest screen role), a man for whom music matters above all else. The pit closes, but the band makes it to the national brass band competition final at the Albert Hall. On winning, you expect Danny to make some sentimental speech about how - in spite of everything - music holds the band together. Instead, he delivers probably the explicit political diatribe against the then Conservative government and the devastation unemployment inflicts on people. It's a superb moment in a film with its heart and soul in the dying working class communities of Yorkshire. This isn't a piece of Ken Loach-like realism - it's prettified and sentimentalised for a mainstream audience, yet the movie looses nothing for it.At the close, the brass band play Elgar's Pomp and Circumstace March Number 1 as they pass the Houses of Parliament. It's meant to be ironic but it's also very touching.

May he rest in Peace!This was the best brass music film I have ever seen and it wouldn't be the same without the ill conductor,who overcame his illness and came to conduct the miner's orchestra of the already fired workers of a closed coal mine.The movie enlightens with the beautiful brass music-especially the "William Tell's overture" from Rossini and the spirit of the musicians,who won a nationwide contest of brass orchestras and dedicated their victory to all the miners,who lost their work during the decline of the coal mining in the United Kingdom. The film shows the importance of the art for the existence of the sole human and the society even in times of turmoil.