Although this is really a serious movie, it is very funny at the same time. Having been in a british-style brass band here in the United States that went to the "nationals" (NABBA), this was a very enjoyable movie to watch. Ewen McGregor is listed as a supporting actor in the movie, but it is really an ensemble cast. Pete Postlethwaite runs amuck going from highs to absolute lows throughout the picture. The brass band is a real band from England and this is a true story that is being told. The William Tell Overture would never be used as the "test" piece for a brass band championship, but it is very recognizeable to a wider audience and makes for a great finale piece as it is used in the movie. It is fun to hear a brass band perform the piece. I highly recommend this movie. It is a real sleeper and deserves to be seen.

Unfortunately, this movie came out around the time of "The Full Monty" and it also deals with the unemployed in dying industries in Britain. Where "The Full Monty" is funny "Brassed Off" is serious and wrenching. No punches pulled here. It avoids bathos because it keeps it eyes focused on the bewildered pain of the coal miners and their families. "Monty" became a huge hit and "Brassed Off" went away largely unwatched. It deserved better.

The story is set in the time of Margaret Thatcher. Many of the old government owned industries were drowning the government and bleeding taxpayers. They were privatized or closed. This caused terribly painful dislocations (as did the much needed recession in the US in the early 1980s). Through this movie we get to see how these dislocations crushed everyday folks caught in the moving parts of these changes. I come from a working class background and have seen the pain of recession and dislocation up close and personal. It hurts and really fine people who work hard and just want to get through life are often damaged severely.

The Grimley colliery (a colliery is coal mine and attendant structures) has been in operation for a long time. One of the traditions of many large working class operations is a brass band whose players are drawn from the workers. In the United States, community brass bands were quite common until WWII. The Grimley band (there is a real life Grimethorpe Colliery band that plays the music in the film) has a long and proud tradition and in the movie is led by Danny (played by the fabulous Pete Postlethwaite). It even has its fans and groupies who dye their hair the same shade of purple as the band uniforms.

The music in the film is a wonderful device and only partly because the band music sounds so good. Art is always an extravagance. How much do you sacrifice in time and money for it? That is always the question and the balance. As I say, my parents worked hard as I was growing up. However, my Dad sang beautifully and the love he and his friends had for music rubbed off on me. Heaven knows the price my own wife and children have paid for my devotion to that art.

Danny's son, Phil (poignantly done by Stephen Tompkinson), plays trombone and is a bit of a bumbler. He supplements his income for his family by being a rather inept clown as well. There is a beautiful but awful side story in the film about Phil's need of a new trombone and his struggle to balance that against the needs of his family and yet what price art? His wife bears the cost of his devotion in wrenching ways. Phil is the point on which all the weight of this film bears to crushing effect.

A young Ewan McGregor plays Andy. For me, Andy points to the whole heart of the problem. Andy is a very bright young man. He really does understand what is going on. However, he has always felt like a loser, so he turns himself into one. When I see the passivity and sense of entitlement in the soon to be redundant miners, I frankly get a bit frustrated. No power on earth can stop economic dislocations from happening. Oh, they can be delayed, but a greater cataclysm will follow. And why should other taxpayers be forever burdened with providing a subsidized living for an inefficient industry? Yes, the Grimley pit was making money, or so the report showed.

However, none of these people had enough of a financial education to put the pit in the broader context to see if it made sense to operate one pit. This is what bothers me. We have to do a better job of preparing people to make changes in their lives. We have to equip them with a better understanding of economics and finance. Of course, that will make them more expensive, but they will be more expensive because they will be able to create more value. Being more flexible with the ability to provide more value is a good thing.

I won't get into the whole drama of the movie except to say that it is honest and touching. The politics are quite anti-Thatcherite, which is appropriate for the characters. However, I think the filmmakers were pushing their own agenda a bit through the voice of the characters and that is a tad bothersome. Thatcher was no more responsible for the economic dislocations than gravity would be if you fell off a roof. But I guess you have to blame someone and she was certainly convenient.

In any case, a fine movie. The language is a bit rough and you might (might) have a bit of a trouble with the working class accents. I encourage you to see it.

'Brassed Off', as the name suggests, is a movie about a Brass Band from a coal mining pit in Yorkshire (in Northern England). If you do not consider yourself a big brass band fan then do not let this put you off because for one reason, unlike most movies based in England, this movie does not contain Hugh Grant, and, therefore, does not contain a soppy love story about a brass band worker who meets some nice lass and after some trials and tribulations ends up getting married. Instead this movie gets to the nitty gritty of life in England during Thatcher's administration, and the impact that her conservative government not only had on the brassed band, but also the whole communities that the coal mines supported in the U.K.
Made up of some fine actors, the band not only performs some fantastic musical pieces, but also reflect the tightness of the communities that supported the mining pits across the UK during the 80s and 90s in Britain. Brassed Off is a tragic comedy about a band that plays through the turmoil of the political situation at the time that not only threatens the mere existence of the band, but also their livelihoods at the mine pits and the entire community that the mine supports. As a movie about a brassed band this is a great show, but as a movie about a true reflection of life in Britain this is a fantastic piece. Highly recommended.

It will make you like brass band music, you will laugh and cry every time you see it, and of course, Ewan McGregor. What more could you want?

This movie features a colliery (coal mine) band that mustn't be missed. It is unbelievably good. In the days of active mining, many mines had their own brass bands and this real band is probably the best ever assembled from among uneducated men who spend their working lives in the dank, dark passages of a coal mine and practice their music at night.

The story centers about the band and the miners who have been laid off because Margaret Thatcher has close hundreds of collieries who could not compete with foreign coal any longer. The government officials pretend that they want the mine left open, but they have already been ordered to close it. The story line is not only correct in what actually happened to mines, but it also contains a budding love affair between Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor.

Like all movies of this type, this one turns out well, but the road to the ending is tense and very entertaining.

Well worth while video to have.