Sweet Sixteen (2003)
Directed by Ken Loach
***1/4
It's fortunate that we watched this with a friend from Glasgow, because the Scottish accents are so thick that we could barely understand a single line of dialogue. Liam, the central character, is caught in a troubled life. His mom's in jail, his dad's a criminal, and his friends are a bunch of hoodlums. So when he decides that a deal with the local crime lord is his ticket to the easy life, things don't go as easily as he had planned. Since it's set in Scotland, expect heaps of profanity and a fair dose of drugs and violence, too. But if you can stomach a tough Scots tale, this is one of the more compelling ones out there - although it's on the same end of the depressing scale as inner city exposés like Once Were Warriors.
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