Very disappointing...

hyped garbage

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

I watched this movie with tears in my eyes. No other movie until know was able to make me feel such pain – almost physical just from watching the story that unfolds on the screen. With risk to repeat myself I must note that this was probably the hardest movie to watch from all I have seen until the moment.I made few notes when it started – there were about the interesting characters, the song of Libera I noticed – but now I can not really write about that. Shocking, painful, cruel, realistic to the core – I can go on like this for a long time. The fact that "Song for a raggy boy" is based on a true story contributes to the powerful effect this movie has on its viewers.The acting is quite good as well – so good that I felt like I knew some of the characters in person. The young actors were really convincing and I felt Delaney and Mercier almost like my friends. But let me tell you a bit more about the movie – it is set in a reformatory school run by the catholic church – as it often happens the boys who are send there find anything , but help and support – instead they are beaten and abused mentally and physically ( some even sexually ) from the priests. One of them Brother John is in charge of discipline – here is the line with which he tells the new teacher for the kind of job he is expected to do: "The creatures you are going to teach are not to be confused with intelligent human beings." Only this line itself was enough for me to imagine the horrible manner in which the boys are treated. The new teacher however tried to change all that – and as the story unfolds I began to really like him – he was strict, but at the same time caring with the boys he taught. Brother John becomes his enemy almost from the very beginning and after failing to persuade the superior at the institution to dismiss the new teacher he directs his anger to the school pupils. You will have to watch the movie to find out how it all ends … This movie gets 10 out of 10 for me – since it is sure one of the best ones I have ever watched.Similar movies: Sleepers, Dead Poets Society

While i lived in Ireland, a friend and i went to the movies in Cork and saw "A song for a Raggy boy" i never thought i would like the movie. But guess what, it was one of the best movies i ever seen. It really touched me, I cried and felt so much for the movie. Its one of the best movies i have ever seen, and i have seen much! Now after seeing this movie i cant help but thinking of another movie that resebels this one, well not so much resembles but made me fell the same, its "Schindler's list". Both movies is based on a true story and about a man that tries to change or change others. Both these movies have an effect to make people understand how we work, and it is scary that we, as a well developed of species, act like brutal animals. Its scary to see. just as you can see it in Mel Gibson's movies "The passion of the Christ". We are not and have never been a nice species. we are just as bad as any other. But for you who want to see a movie that touches and makes you see something else then the classical Hollywood movies, see this one.

I'd like to ask what morons have thrashed this great movie. You see there are people who have no idea what makes a good movie and they write crap.Like the guy who said it was an awful movie and that it was too predictable.Well its based on a true story.I don't think people understand that this type of thing happened here,it happened for decades and the story needed to be told.Most reviews have said this movie is useless,mainly because it is just "another" abuse story.So what?There have been movies about abuse made up,but this is based on things that happened form the 40's to the 80's.These boys were sexually and physically abused and it was ignored,there was no one to help them.Some reviews I have read seem to hint that they do not like the movie because it makes the priests out to be evil and they don't want their religion hurt.Well Ill tell you this,some of them were evil,of course not all of them,but yes,some of them were the definition of evil.If this movie doesn't hit you in a way that nearly makes you cry,then you have something wrong with you.And just look at all the awards it got from film festivals.Great movie,great acting,Aiden Quinn was brilliant as were the kids.4 out of 5.

Another Roman-Catholic bashing film that comes hot on the heels of The Magdalene Sisters and in a very similar tone. Young adolescent boys that have got into trouble are incarcerated in a 1930s Irish Reformatory School. There they receive fascist style floggings and rape at the hands of the priests. All based on a true story and quite horrific to watch - one scene of two boys being flogged almost to death is remarkably similar to the same scene in Passion of Christ where 'Jesus' is tortured before crucifixion. Whether the film makes any significant contribution is another matter. Even in an age when courts worldwide seem embattled over paedophile Roman Catholic priests, most people are now aware of the moral paucity of that religious order without ever questioning it. Forgiveness is handed out like a rosary, pointing to the good works the church does. Even a Michael Moore might have gone a little bit further and made some comment on what has been done to prevent similar abuses in the present day and the future, or raised awareness about other catastrophes waiting to happen. Or perhaps list in the closing credits some statistics, good and bad. Even Capturing the Friedmans puts forward a real moral dilemma inasmuch as the perpetrators of abuse are also people who have done much good. Song for a Raggy Boy does none of this and so, together with the rather cheesy clichés about the 'good teacher' standing up to the evil of the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps suggests to a sated audience that the horrors portrayed might be inspired by gratuitous or commercial interest rather than documentarian passion and the fight for human rights / goodness. The simplistic approach undermines what could have been a powerful statement. Failure to distinguish and contrast the Church hierarchy, its dominance, false sanctity and the way its main players are protected, on the one hand, with the decency of the many ordinary catholics on the other, may not only rob the film of its true potential but cause people to feel embittered at being lumped together in the same religion. That the Roman Catholic Church has been capable of so much evil through its history should not cause us to hate the millions of people born into that religion, just as we should not associate modern fundamentalist Islam (and its terrorist offspring) with the millions of loving Muslims. A fleeting reference to Catholic atrocity in the Spanish Civil War is again portrayed in black and white terms, without hard historical facts that could have been appended, or any context - leaving the viewer to either be aware of the politics and religious links to fascism or dismiss them as over-embroidery. Ultimately, films such as Raggy Boy need to go more accurately to the root of the psychological dynamics that allow such evil to flourish.