Review of Riff-Raff (1991) by Hans L — 08 Jun 2009

It's 1990 and Robert Carlyle's Stevie heads from Glasgow to London in search of work in the wake of Thatcher's social attack on Britain. He is sleeping rough until he gets a job as a labourer on a building site with woeful working conditions.

Initially the film sets out to illustrate class solidarity and the literal waste of space that is Britain as his colleagues and new friends set him up in a squat. But, despite Ken Loach's many critics, it's never as simple as that and as a filmmaker and social theorist Loach is all too aware of the rods the working classing make for their own backs.

The divisions caused by money and identity are thoroughly explored before returning to his initial focus: the abject poverty of working and living conditions that face the British poor in the face of the Yuppie boom.

But the film is weakened in part due to its portrayal of the one and only woman present as a whining, unrealistic, manipulative casual substance abuser, which denigrates her plight in relation to her male counterparts.

The role of Susan is further reduced by her serving as little more than a love interest as her own agency gradually takes a back seat to Loach's wider concerns. Ex builder Ricky Tomlinson is as ever reliable in the tragic and comedic role of Larry who whilst sermonising on the social disaster of capitalism in general and Thatcherism in particular, is also a paternal figure always on the look out of his colleagues.

Until he is made redundant for challenging the working conditions on the site. Throughout the film is presented the metonym of rats that riddle the building site as well as the classes and the social structures of Britain.

In the end however the plotting is far too predictable and despite a solid and thoughtful discourse the films suffers greatly in this respect. The impact of the drama is further weakened by a denouement that is advertised well in advance of its arrival.

But the final scene remains satisfying as we watch the whole shit house go up in flames.