Why the negative press?

I had to laugh at the scene at the start when Charlie Cox is cycling in 1950's Glasgow towards Glasgow University and you can see quite cleary a 2007 Glasgow Council van in the background! Good film though, just a couple of goofs in it!

The press have been negative because the film is terrible. Seriously, it's a contender for the worst film I have ever seen.

The script writing is nauseating, with painful speeches that are supposed to inspire patriotism, but instead made me cringe. The Robert the Bruce one was the worst ("We need to look for spiders"), but it was only one of many. Equally painful were the accents, with even Scottish actors making a hash of Scottish accents (I'm guessing they were trying to sound extra-Scottish to inspire patriotism).

There was the scene when two of the characters explain their motivations for being involved in the plot - it was like listening to them describe which overused film character cliche they were - 'I'm the one whom everyone likes because I'm a good laugh, but I want to prove to myself and others that there's more to me'.

Then there was the story itself. As a unionist, I suppose I was always going to find fault with this piece of nationalist propaganda, but even I couldn't believe how badly it was handled. Braveheart, for all its flaws, worked because it gave you reason to consider the English the bad guys - Edward I was a vile character. In Stone of Destiny, the English characters were just terrible stereotypes. Still, we were supposed to buy into this idea that Scotland needs 'freedom' from the evil English, although there was no justification for this proposition given. It seems to serve no purpose other than to increase tensions between Scotland and England - tensions that are based on events that happened about 700 years ago.

The film appears to be setting out to challenge the views of one character, expressed at the start, that "Scotland is dead". Instead of challenging this by demonstrating what a great nation Scotland is, it presents us with our 'heroes', who are a group of thieving vandals. I love Scotland, and I don't want our nation to be defined by people who think that breaking into a church and causing criminal damage is admirable.

Maybe we're uncomfertable with the fact that its basically neo-nationalist propoganda. And this is coming from a Scottish girl.

Those are my principals. If you don't like them I have others.~Groucho Marx

After reading what turned out to be a rather poor review in the Metro paper, I wasn't sure what to expect..

That review criticized it for the lead actor being American - made no difference to me (as per Braveheart) and then went on to say that most of the scenes weren't filmed in Scotland, didn't seem the case from what I saw (quite the opposite), but who cares.

I found it a decent enough heist movie, some cheesy dialogue but nothing too offensive. I think the subject matter of Scotland vs England will cause some reviewers to loose focus.

Because the English are a bunch of sore loosers and big p **sies!!!! Down with England, long live Scotland! LOL...I'm just kidding.

I really liked the movie. A thoroughly enjoyable flick.

"Today is the tomorrow I was so worried about yesterday"--Anthony Hopkins

I thought it was a good movie. An interesting story, and one I personally was not aware of. If movies do sometimes both entertain and inform, to a certain extent, then this was one of those ocassions. I am glad that I had the opportunity to see it.

It talks about a people that have lost their sense of self and self-worth as throughout what was a quite brutal and opressive time in history, they were stripped of their pride and identity, only to be slowly swallowed by the inevitable advance of time. Yet the passage of time did not dampen all the excitement and recognition that to be whole as a people one need maintain some connections to the past and learn of his own history and ancestors, the time and people that laid the foundation for what is. To ingore your own history and culture is to give up on yourself. That is important, not for some selfish motivation, not to bring about misery and violence, but to better understand oneself and the place one occupies in this world. Without that nobody, whether an individual, family, clan, tribe or nation, can move forward and evolve.

That is what I personally got from this movie. The cast was great, the cinematography was just beautiful (even though some scenes where filmed in British Columbia, Canada). I am a fan of Robert Carlyle, and here he did not dissapoint, even though his presence on screen was quite brief. The atmosphere was imbued with a lot of character and life, emotions and thoughts.

The British people are always portrayed as stiff, cold, distant etc. Yet everytime I have met Brits (English, Welsh or Scottish), they are full of a suprising joy-de-vivre and a life knowledge that escapes a lot of other people I have encountered during my life and travels. There is a kind of underlying mischief and sense of impropriety in things that are done under the guise of the "stiff-upper-lip". The Irish, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians share in this. It makes for very interesting people, people who I want to be around with. I mean, Monty Python, need I say more!!!!

So all in all, I enjoyed this little movie amidst all the award seeking films and big budged flicks as well as the heap of garbage movies that orbit outhere. Though it was in very limited release, I hope that on DVD it will enjoy more recognition and a wider audience.

"Today is the tomorrow I was so worried about yesterday"--Anthony Hopkins

Negative press, mainly because most of the folk who run the papers in Scotland, and the UK are anti-Scottish independence and the SNP. Simple as that. If they took the political blinkers off, they'd still find a good few faults in it, but they wouldn't have slammed it so badly.

I agree,watched the movie with the missus and we both loved it!

It had everything it needed to make a good movie,likeable characters,good plot,good acting,great scots scenery,and humour!