Just perfect...

Crappy film

An absolute waste of money

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Ken Loach remains the British auteur. Route Irish while definitely not his best due to the off-script ad lib workshop style remains a powerful and relevant film. It would have been made into a big Hollywood thriller in the US going all the way up to the Senate and beyond, and this is the film's strength - it focuses on squaddies - simple soldiers - no big politics here - and the film gets its impact from that.The plot of the man whose best friend joins up because of him then dies is mysterious circumstances in Iraq is a very strong plot - more so that most Loach films.Set in Liverpool and Iraq the filming, the settings, the language, and even, in places the acting are crude and in your face - this is not Ae Fond Kiss or even The Wind That Shakes The Barley, this is an angry Ken, a Ken saying look this matters forget subtlety - let's just get it done.The film is carried by Mark Womack who brings both skill as an actor and improviser and an unknown raw almost out of control energy that carries the themes and give the film its power.All in all, while not Loach's best in terms of film, this should be his most powerful and relevant, but by opting for a crude and broad approach instead of some subtle in with the barrage - left this viewer numbed - some space and silences (Like all over Loach films have had magnificently) would have helped perhaps.A visceral film but one that overpowers the viewer's emotions too much, one that while still very powerful doesn't linger as other Loach films have.

Many movies are political but just a few directors are as consciously political film-maker like Ken Loach. This work hasn't got a clear left-wing agenda like others but it's his point on the Iraki war and handles subjects discussed upon many occasions, such as the exploitation of the unemployed and war crimes. Aside from the original (in Loach's films) issue, Route Irish is a characteristic production of this director and has many grim sequences. There are also very good acting performances that keep pace with the progress of the story. The conclusion is shocking but on the whole the film is a didactic and angry thriller, in the typical style of the social realist Loach.

I have to confess that I've never been a fan of Loach . If a film director says the most important aspect to film making is hearing if the dialogue is authentic then perhaps the director should be working in radio ? ROUTE IRISH is a film that opened to some bad reviews even from people forgiving to Loach and his politics . Make no mistake the politics here sink the movie which is probably the worst film in the director's long resume One can't help thinking if the problem is the premise or the plotting . It's certainly a combination of both and both faults can be squared at the feet of screenwriter Paul Laverty who wants his cake and eat it by giving us gritty kitchen sink politics in a BOURNE type of plot . You can perhaps see a Hollywood type of blockbuster where George Clooney finds his best friend , a security contractor , has been killed in Iraq in dubious circumstances and Georgious George wants to get to the bottom of it . Unfortunately the only person the screenplay seems written for is not George Clooney but George Galloway Mark Womack is cast as anti-hero Fergus Molloy and you got to feel slightly sorry that Womack has not been given a convincing character to perform . Molloy is a veteran of the Iraq war , then he reveals he was in SAS operations but for some ridiculous reason he then spouts slogans that would feel at home at a Trotskyite useful idiot convention " Why would the police care about a taxi driver . There's one million dead in Iraq " Well only if you listen to the discredited figures of John Hopkins University . Most observers including those like Iraq Body Count and Wikileaks which were opposed to the war give a figure closer to 105,000 " I carried out operations with the Americans in Bahgdad . I'm telling you if the Iraqis weren't for Al Qaeda at the time they now will be " Not actually correct . Even today you watch the news and wedding parties in Sunni heartlands have seen massacres by terrorists . The victims are often relatives of Sunni warlords who changed sides during the Iraq insurgency . It must be very painful for useful idiots to learn that if the one thing Iraqis hate more than American neo-imperialism then it's the murderous barbarity by Al Qaeda . AQ failed to take root in the country down to the fact that not even the most misguided Baa'thist nationalist can tolerate them as an allySo in effect the protagonist lacks any credibility down to a lack of back story or consistency . He's impossible to believe in as anything more than a platform for Laverty's political views . And it was this spouting of incredibly unconvincing dialogue that caused critics to suggest Loach and Laverty to part ways . I for one will be happy to see Laverty find his true calling in life which is handing out political pamphlets to equally useful idiots . I also wonder since he's so opposed to market forces if Laverty got paid for his screenplays ? I mean he's effectively saying " Rich people bad . Poor people good " so isn't there something hypocritical afoot ?And perhaps the most hypocritical thing is that Loach and Laverty are profiting from the invasion of Iraq by making a film about it ? They were probably thinking they were ironic in making the water board torture scene but the irony of the whole film seems lost on them

I almost don't want to be too honest about Ken Loach's latest. He is a national treasure after all. But then I remember what my job here is. 'Route Irish' is different from any other Loach film I've seen. Half the story is set in Iraq (Jordan), and uses techniques more typical of a Blockbuster. Route Irish was, during the Iraq war, believed to be quite literally the most dangerous road in the world, where suicide bombings, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and other nasties were commonplace. Disbelieving that his best friend and army buddy, Frankie (comedian John Bishop) was KIA, Liverpudlian Fergus (Mark Womack) vows to get to the truth. Frankie, says Fergus, 'was born lucky'. If you can forgive this soupçon of implausibility from which the story emanates, you can enjoy (parts of) the film.Twenty-four hour news makes us immune to the carnage of war. We tuck into our cornflakes while yawning at Apocalypse Now-style footage. Here, Ken Loach personalises war. He's always used film as a political medium to mirror his Left-leaning views. But there's a distinctly pluralistic advocacy on display in this film. Iraqis are at once sympathised with and blamed. The role of a soldier is both defended and upbraided. And the use of private contractors in the 'war on terror' is equally shielded and condemned. The only bits that are worthy of Loach are the scenes of tension, for instance when Fergus explains to Rachel (Frankie's partner) that of course Frankie played around: 'Every day out there (Iraq) could be the last – how can you go from that to shopping at Tesco?'. For such a kindly codger, Loach has quite a tolerance for profanity. The 'f' word doesn't bother me, but it's overdoing it a bit when you put the likes of Tarantino to shame. As the peerless critic Roger Ebert said of another film, 'profanity is used as punctuation'. Strangely, a full-on waterboarding torture scene has no more terror than an exploding party popper. Clearly not destined to bother the Russian roulette scene from 'The Deer Hunter'. It's in tune with the general tone of the film: big ambitions, too little follow-through.Various technical points distracted me from an otherwise half-decent melodrama. Fergus casually lets slip that he's ex-SAS. That would imply he's a man of considerable resourcefulness. So why can't he himself extract video clips from Frankie's primitive mobile phone to establish how he died? And why does he need to conduct online conference calls to amateurs for information? What's stopping him from Andy McNabbing his own way into Iraq? www.scottishreview.net