88% The Angels' Share

All Critics (85) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (75) | Rotten (10)

The result is a sometimes gritty, occasionally charming Highland hybrid, but the final balance feels slightly off-kilter.

Loach takes us through the mysteries of whisky making, exploring the subtle tastes and scents in ways that will have audiences wishing they had a dram at hand. But a glass also serves more symbolic purposes ...

If you want to look for it, you'll find a layer of metaphor (the distilling process as a symbol of the characters' evolution) and social-realist commentary amid the gentle, life-affirming laughs.

[Ken Loach] and his longtime screenwriter, Paul Laverty, find a good balance between drama and wacky character moments.

A fairy tale with its feet firmly on the ground.

A lark, but it's a serious-minded lark, addressing issues of class and culture, the haves and have-nots.

They're a fun bunch of tart-tongued Scots, and if their adventures don't amount to anything of thematic significance, watching them is a pleasure.

A surprisingly warm and heartfelt film about a flawed criminal struggling to start a new life after the birth of his first child.

Ken Loach walks on the lighter side

The title, by the way, refers to the distillation process: the 2% of whisky that evaporates in the barrel is known as "the angel's share." I'm afraid there's more than 2% evaporation going on in Loach's latest.

Much like a stiff drink at the end of a long day, "The Angels' Share" gets the job done, but you're probably not going to remember it in the morning.

Loach's realism lends an easygoing, ramshackle quality to the film that smoothes over any lack of tightness.

Director Ken Loach's latest glimpse of the U.K. underclass is really two rather different movies, either of which I would've enjoyed on their own. But they don't really fit together in any satisfying or even logical way.

Whether Robbie pulls off his caper should be left for the audience to discover. But Loach's great cinematic switcheroo goes off almost without a hitch.

As heartwarming and uplifting as any tale could be that features vicious beatings and grand larceny.

While it has some likable characters, particularly its charismatic lead, it's impossible to shake the feeling that we've seen this movie before.

Lead actor Paul Brannigan, the product of Glasgow's working-class East End, is a natural.

The usual Loachian elements are all in place, but there is a gentle spirit at work here as well, and not just the alcoholic spirits around which the plot revolves.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_angels_share/

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