In the end, Jimmy's Hall is a your typical issue movie. But it happens to be one made by a master.

| Jan 13, 2021

Ken Loach has fashioned one of his purest and most lovely films here in Jimmy's Hall.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 12, 2018

This is Loach at his best.

| Aug 23, 2018

Whilst it shone a light on someone that most people had never heard of is much in Loach's favour it would have been a reacher experience if the film covered more of his life before his departure to New York, there are only a limited flashbacks.

| Aug 22, 2018

The film feels flat, self-consciously preachy and not a patch on my own favourite, Land And Freedom.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 18, 2017

With a romantic lyricism that never dips into sentimentality, he (Loach) has captured the poetry of populism that has always driven his work.

| Aug 2, 2017

Barry Ward's handsome, charismatic hero is a romanticised figure (in reality Gralton was middle-aged and balding), which wouldn't matter if his character had been given more depth and shade.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 10, 2016

A handsomely mounted, yet modest and precise piece of work that unearths a little-known true story of injustice and reminds us all of how the present is always in the shadow of the past.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 16, 2016

This 1930s-set drama chronicling events leading to the deportation of a little-known, real-life Irish political activist is a graceful digest of Loach's signature motifs.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 6, 2016

It's mildly entertaining but suffers from the one problem common to all these movies -- that the enemy is so vile, there is little shading.

| Mar 22, 2016

... a soft-focus, minor film. It's not bad, but it could have been better. Hence the heartbreak.

| Original Score: 85/100 | Jan 9, 2016

Even an ultimately forgettable effort from this esteemed social-realist director can't help but achieve eloquence in its affirmation of basic human decency.

| Dec 31, 2015

The king of the "kitchen sink" drama, Loach may not make action-packed sugar candy or anything remotely resembling American genre, but he does know how to render people in their natural surroundings.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 23, 2015

It's rare to see a film that presents its characters -- working-class 'bog' folk and haughty clergy alike -- without a trace of condescension or caricature; it's rarer still to see a movie that unambiguously champions so-called radical politics.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 5, 2015

Deeply political, but warm, human and completely engaging drama from British director Ken Loach.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 12, 2015

The movie becomes more problematic when we try to discern how director Ken Loach wants us to apply its lessons to our day.

| Sep 4, 2015

No one has mastered the art of turning tense discussions over political philosophies and tactics into drama like director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty; it's a shame there's not more of it here.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 4, 2015

A dark period of Irish history revealed as unvarnished drama with a little romance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 4, 2015

A film that breaks little new narrative ground but which nonetheless offers an enjoyable and handsomely photographed snapshot of the Irish experience

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2015

The movie paints a picture of a church hierarchy that has basically ruled people's lives for centuries and is unwilling to bend with modern times - not out of malevolence, but of fear and distrust of change.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 3, 2015