Fireworks Logo

Trailers...

  • Sally
  • Keep Coming Back
  • Eros
  • Cactus Pears
  • According to Otto
  • #1 Happy Family USA
  • Newborn
  • Where the Wind Comes From
  • Love Bites
  • Four Seasons (The)
  • Fear Street: Prom Queen
  • Brooklyn Butcher (The)
  • Étoile
  • Midnight in Phoenix
  • Grotesquerie
  • Sudden Outbursts of Emotions
  • Idyllic
  • Spermageddon
  • La Joia: Bad Gyal
  • Sobre las olas
  • Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines
  • Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance
  • Pee-wee as Himself
  • Pwede G, pwede B
  • Alien: Romulus
  • Male Gaze: Reality Bites (The)
  • Mariliendre
  • Things Like This
  • Last First Time (The)
  • Sylvia Robyn
  • Sorry, Baby
  • Reset
  • Ramón y Ramón
  • President's Wife (The)
  • Inside
  • Ten Pound Poms
  • Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot (A)
  • Fuori
  • No Way Up
  • Queens of Joy

Borstal Boy

Country: UK, Language: English, 93 mins

  • Director: Peter Sheridan
  • Writer: Brendan Behan; Nye Heron
  • Producer: Judy Counihan; Nye Heron

CGiii Comment

Sterilised and, practically, stripped of any real realism - if that's what you have to do for a mainstream release...then, what's the point?!?

It simply plods along and drifts into a plastic tear-jerker.

Sheridan has, possibly, created the most polite juvenile delinquents ever.

The homosexuality is so under-played as to make it insipid - Behan's sexuality is dubious to say the least...but, he was a vile drunk who stretched the truth to unimaginable lengths.

Almost totally implausible - watchable for all the wrong reasons...seeing Dyer being out-acted by Hatosy is uncomfortable viewing.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

Brendan Behan, a sixteen year-old republican, is going on a bombing mission from Ireland to Liverpool during the second world war. His mission is thwarted when he is apprehended, charged and imprisoned in Borstal, a reform institution for young offenders in East Anglia, England. At Borstal, Brendan is forced to live face-to-face with those he perceived as "the enemy," a confrontation that reveals a deep inner conflict in the young Brendan and forces a self-examination that is both traumatic and revealing. Events take an unexpected turn and Brendan is thrown into a complete spin. In the emotional vortex, he finally faces up to the truth.

Cast & Characters

Shawn Hatosy as Brendan Behan;
Danny Dyer as Charlie Milwall;
Lee Ingleby as Dale;
Robin Laing as Jock;
Eva Birthistle as Liz Joyce;
Michael York as Joyce;
Mark Huberman as Mac;
Jim Byrne as Parson;
Garret Deady as Borstal Boy;
Darren Donohue as Borstal Boy;
Ronnie Drew as Customs Man;
William Fitzpatrick as Borstal Boy;
Luke Griffin as Miller;
Trevor Hanly as Soldier;
Lukas Hassel as Hassel