Brassed Off
Miramax Films | Release Date: May 23, 1997 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Herman handled his script cleanly and cast the picture well. [09Jun1997 Pg 30]
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Brassed Off is a sweet film with a lot of anger at its core. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Brassed Off! is a traditional feel-good motion picture with an element of social commentary thrown in for good measure. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
The characters are beautifully drawn in this bittersweet melodrama written and directed by Mark Herman. Read full review
75
USA TodaySusan Wloszczyna
The pitch of the script, written by director Mark Herman, isn't perfect. But these earthy blokes are an engaging lot, the soot of the earth, with an admirably wry view of their bleak situations. [23May1997 Pg 03.D]
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Brassed Off is shamelessly manipulative and sentimental, but in an agreeably familiar way. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
The music's great, but frequent tight shots of actors ostensibly blowing their horns look phony enough to be distracting. Read full review
70
VarietyDerek Elley
This well-played, often very sparky dramedy about the shenanigans in a northern brass band composed of miners threatened with pit closure gets a bad attack of social realism in the latter stages that rocks the crowded craft. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRussell Smith
In the end, though, the undeniable power and emotional richness of this film swing the balance toward the good. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
There's a double meaning in the title of this folksy, relentlessly political, heavy-handed story, written and directed by Mark Herman and set among the coal mines of Yorkshire, England, in 1992. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Brassed Off gets bogged down in sentimentality; and that political agenda is spread on thick. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Freer
However, writer-director Mark Herman never really achieves the correct balance between the serious and the feelgood, allowing an uneasy tone to prevail, while the small screen style and supporting cast of familiar TV faces suggests this would play more comfortably on the box. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
If you're in a triumph of the human spirit frame of mind, this is your cup of dark, sweet tea. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Herman isn't sure if he's doing a big-statement picture or a tiny treasure of a comedy, and his confusion throws Brassed Off off balance. Read full review
50
San Francisco ExaminerWalter Addiego
Writer-director Mark Herman seems genuinely moved by the plight of the mining communities, but his attempt to translate those feelings into a story shows the effects of hard labor. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
An odd duck of a movie, it's really a British Labor Party television commercial bitterly shoehorned into the cheesy format of an American triumph fantasy, with a horn section. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
As well-meaning elegies go, especially ones to working stiffs prematurely ripped from their subterranean roots, Brassed Off is the pits: It's a miner opus in a minor key. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJohn Anderson
The difficulty is that Brassed Off operates at an emotional pitch that starts at a crescendo and never relents--rendering almost everything equally inconsequential. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
Trimmed to an hour, and tucked between a documentary on snails and an episode of Coronation Street, writer-director Mark Herman's Brassed Off could prove lively watching indeed. As it is, however, his pedestrian if sweetly well-meaning inspirational about a coal-mining town done in by Thatcherism is too long, too laborious and 15 years too late. Read full review
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