Watch Once Upon a Time in the Midlands For Free

Powerful

How sad is this?

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I stuck this one for thirty minutes, until I could take no more.Is it a comedy? No, it's not in the slightest amusing.Drama? Nope.Romance? Definitely no.SciFi? Possibly, the characters don't seem to inhabit any of the planets I'm familiar with.Seriously, this is a terrible effort. Long, meandering shots which lead nowhere. Dreadful people with accents that are incomprehensible. Situations that have absolutely no relevance to whatever plot there may be. Cuts from one venue to another with no indication what connection they have.The cinematography is quite reasonable. That's all, folks.

I generally like Shane Meadows, his honest writing and depiction of what early 21st century average life in Britain is actually like, is both appealing and refreshing.This one (I re-watched after many years and seen all his later work) is just a bit of a tangled mess (hence my summary title). It was great to watch the great Kathy Burke in a dominant (yes!) role now that she's concentrating on theatre direction these days. Also, her screen hubbie, a rather ridiculous wannabe country singer in the shape of Ricky Tomlinson.Robert Carlyle plays to form as a real piece of ***t who is after getting his ex back. I soon found his constant shouting, swearing and nastiness wearying and Ryhs Ifans' counter example, as poor Shirley Henderson's dopey, lily-livered 'boyfriend' equally annoying. I wanted to shout out loud 'forget them both', but this being drama, the opposite happens of course.The lighter moments, I suppose were intended to punctuate this domestic misery with an air of humanity. But, most of the time, they look stupidly careless, leaving you unsure whether they were intentional, or not. I did like the overall premise, especially at the end, when the subversive comparison to the classic western becomes apparent, though the setting is a modern English city's housing estate over a hundred years later. The Sierra Cosworth being the equivalent of a wild stallion...?Meadow's work, though, is always of much merit and the fact that he has gotten himself a niche and etched himself a position on that elite panel of independent Brit directors whose work is admired equally by critics and public alike, is to be much admired. It also means that this quite early offering from him is still above average.

'Once upon a time in the midlands' is a low budget film, and it shows. To be blunt, the film was possibly the most disappointing movie of the year. From looking at the cast, I had high expectations of the film, with talents such as Ricky Tomlinson, Ricky Carlisle, and Kathy Burke etc as well as the famous director himself, Shane Meadows. I feel that the main contribution to the let down of the film was the weak storyline.Thanx!A lot!Thanks!Thank you very much!

I had high hopes for this British film when I saw that it was directed by the famous Shane Meadows and starring such well known British talent such as Ricky Tomlinson, Kathy Burke, Robert Carlyse and Rhys Ifans. However, as soon as the film begins, literally within the first 10 minutes, I was left wanting more from this initially promising premise. The concepts being portrayed display promise but are far too shallow, the story merely ambles along to meet its dreary resolution.The actors give this film some credit, but they battle with a substandard script and lack of any real deep, meaning narrative. The dry humour was so arid that it failed to make me laugh out loud once, and only secured a stifled chuckle on rare occasions. One of Shane's least successful films. I would not recommend it to anyone whom I consider a friend!