Stars:
Ricky Tomlinson,
Robert Carlyle,
Emer McCourt,
Peter Mullan,
Louise Goodall,
David McKay,
Gary Lewis,
Bruce Jones,
Julie Brown,
Gemma Phoenix,
Tom Hickey
Director:
Ken Loach
Summary: In 'Riff Raff' a Glaswegian starts work on a London building site where all the workers are each into their own scam. Building rules and regs don't appear to be in force here. In 'My Name Is Joe' a former alcoholic, who is currently out of work, keeps himself busy by coaching a football team in Glasgow. In 'Raining Stones' unemployed Bob Williams will turn his hand to anything to supplement his meagre dole money.
This triple feature presents three films by renowned director Ken Loach--RIFF RAFF, MY NAME IS JOE, and RAINING STONES--in one specially priced box set. See individual titles for more details.
RIFF RAFF: Director Ken Loach's concern for the plight of the working man takes a comic turn in this gritty film starring Robert Carlyle as Stevie, a young Scotsman who finds a construction job in the north of London turning an old hospital into luxury condos. Like most of the largely non-English crew, he's forced to live in an abandoned building whose doors can be opened only with a crowbar. Despite their differences, the laborers are bound by the difficulty of their work and their shared hatred of the bosses and contractors who constantly threaten to fire them and endanger their lives by cutting corners on safety. Loach's camera follows the workers unobtrusively as they relax in the squats and pubs, revealing, in their gallows humour, the fatalism of men who feel they've been forgotten by the society they inhabit.
MY NAME IS JOE: Peter Mullan won the Best Actor award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival for his performance as Joe Kavanagh, a recovering alcoholic in his late 30s. Like half the people in his impoverished Glasgow neighborhood, he's unemployed and struggles to get by between odd jobs and the dole, along with coaching a ragtag soccer team largely consisting of delinquents. As difficult as his life may seem, he's buoyed by a willed optimism that he realizes is the only alternative to reverting to his addiction. When he's caught by a niggling unemployment official while doing the odd wallpapering job for social worker-nurse Sarah Downie (Louise Goodall), she helps to keep him from losing his sinecure. The two soon begin a tentative relationship, but Joe remains connected to his former life through his young friend Liam (David McKay), an ex-con and former addict. Mullan is utterly believable as another of social realist director Ken Loach's characters attempting to negotiate the tough climate of 1980s Great Britain.
RAINING STONES: RAINING STONES, in its quietly observant, almost documentary-like style, is typical of director Ken Loach's understated approach to his left-leaning politics. The film stars Bruce Jones as Bob, a man in an impoverished town in the north of England, struggling to survive on the dole while hustling for any odd jobs he can find, or otherwise pushing the envelope with edgy, foolhardy gigs, such as stealing sheep with his friend Tommy (Ricky Tomlinson) with the hope of reselling them--and when that plan fails, repackaging them as mutton for door-to-door sales. While he's looking the other way, his van is stolen, an event typical of Bob's chronic bad luck. When his wife, Anne (Julie Brown), reminds him of the forthcoming first communion of their daughter, Coleen (Gemma Phoenix), Bob insists that she will have a new dress, although the parish priest, Father Barry (Tom Hickey), advises him that a secondhand dress would be a wiser choice. Bob's quest to raise the money for the dress has surprising repercussions.