Rent Riff-Raff (1991)
3.6 of 5 from 102 ratings
1h 35min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Stevie (Robert Carlyle), a young Glaswegian just out of Barlinnie prison, comes down to London and gets a job on a building site - a melting pot of itinerant labourers from all over the country. Here he has to contend with Mick the bossy ganger trying - but usually failing to control his workers, Shem, Mo (George Moss) and Larry (Ricky Tomlinson) and the other lads as they duck and dive the rules and regulations of the building trade. Stevie has other problems to contend: the wages are low, the site teems with rats, he has nowhere to sleep and life in London isn't that easy. One day, on his way to work, Stevie finds a handbag in a skip. He takes it back to it owner and meets Susan. As Stevie and Susan learn to live with the ups and downs of life in London, Riff-Raff builds a portrait - sometimes gritty, often funny of life as it is lived in the margins. - Actors:
- Robert Carlyle, Emer McCourt, Jim R. Coleman, George Moss, Ricky Tomlinson, David Finch, Richard Belgrave, Ade Sapara, Derek Young, Bill Moores, Luke Kelly, Gary Lammin, Willie Ross, Dean Perry, Dylan O'Mahony, Brian Coyle, Stuart Peveril, Terry Bird, Jimmy Batten, Tracy Brabin
- Directors:
- Ken Loach
- Producers:
- Sally Hibbin
- Writers:
- Bill Jesse
- Studio:
- Cinema Club
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 25/09/2017
- Run Time:
- 96 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono, English LPCM Stereo
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Ken Loach: The Guardian Lecture at the National Film Theatre with Derek Malcolm (1992, 74 mins) Face to Face: Jeremy Isaacs talks to Ken Loach (Geraldine Dowd, 1991, 40 mins): the former head of Channel Four discusses the filmmaker's life and career
- Carry on Ken (Toby Reisz, 2006, 49 mins): an in-depth documentary appraising the director
- Original Trailers
- Stills galleries
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Reviews (2) of Riff-Raff
No riff Raff here! - Riff-Raff review by CP Customer
A superb film, with a great set of actors all working closely together, to produce a story, true to life, funny and heartbreaking. A bit rough round the ages but I loved it, acting at it's best, not glossed up and perfect but bare and natural, some great lines and lots pf good laughs.
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Casual Labour - Riff-Raff review by Steve
For about an hour its possible to imagine this was influenced by Auf Wiefersen, Pet, with its motley crew of labourers from around the UK who left their home towns due to unemployment in the '80s recession and then are mixed up in amusing misadventures on a building project in London.
But this is Ken Loach working from the only ever script by Bill Jesse, a former construction worker. So initially this represents the UK as a divided nation adrift in drugs, crime and homelessness; it's a polemic aimed at the contemporary Tory government a year after Margaret Thatcher resigned.
Of course, the workers are transforming a hospital into luxury apartments, while the bosses exploit a shocking disregard for health and safety... Robert Carlyle plays the main character, an ex-con with tiny dreams who joins the posse, then shacks up with a delusional wannabe (Emer McCourt).
But the heart of the film is (ex-builder) Ricky Tomlinson as an exile from Merseyside who argues for union representation and loses his job. And then it all gets much darker... It isn't the '80s of tv nostalgia shows, but it's the one many of us will remember. And this acutely captures the zeitgeist.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.