Do you think Jon did kill his dad in the end? I know it seems a silly question but when I first watched that scene it looked like he backed out of doing that at the last minute and just laid on top of his dad in despair.
Surely if he had have killed his dad, his mum would have called the police and he wouldn't just gone back to school as if nothing had happened.
I thought the dad scenes were extremely weak. Typical Mullan self-indulgence... Total cliche.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
I thought the dad scenes were extremely weak. Typical Mullan self-indulgence... Total cliche.
"I thought Mullan's scenes in The Magdalene Sisters were also very OTT (though it was an excellent movie). "
And I agree back... with your comment here.
I don't rate Mullan much in terms of range.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
"I don't rate Mullan much in terms of range"
Haha, that's just hilariously... wrong. have you actually seen him play in anything else except these 2 minor roles in his own films? Mullan is a fantastic actor precisely because of his range, and anyone who has seen him in roles as disparate as Children of Men, Boy A, Session 9 and especially My Name is Joe will agree. And even when he plays a raging alcoholic in Tyrannosaur, it's completely believable and never over the top (plus, there's much more to that guy than a raging alcoholic, and Mullan conveys the depths and complexity of the character beautifully, and never makes a scene all about himself and gives so much space to other actors).
The character of the father in Neds might seem a bit OTT, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that mullan based the character on his own father and there isn't a single line that john's father says than mullan's own father didn't say. So it's very much grounded in reality. And it might explain his weird preference for playing bullying, despicable, abusive fathers in his own films. It's not self-indulgence, it's just a pretty standard (or even necessary) artistic practice of drawing from one's own memories and experiences. The decision to take these roles himself rather than handing them over to someone else is quite brave rather than self-indulgent, I would say :)
"that's just hilariously... wrong. have you actually seen him play in anything else except these 2 minor roles in his own films? "
I've seen him in dozens of things. Even some Harry Potter film ffs.
He plays much the same thing in most of them. A gruff guy, usually with issues about violence, and often a jakie. He's good at doing that, but I've not seen him do much apart from that.
At one point he seemed to turn up in every other Scottish film, and a good bit of TV too.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
John collapses on top of his Dad out of pain and exhaustion. It seemed to me like that scene represented the closest John would get (or allow himself to get) as a hug from his father.
John definitely did not kill his father. I'm pretty sure there is a scene after that where we see the two of them together.
Why did he ask john to "finish me"??? Whats the thinking behind that?
Also, it's very annoying that this site doesn't give any separation whatsoever from signatures.
[deleted]
Aye, that's a pretty likely explanation.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
It was a real human tragedy to see a man fallen so low that he'd beg his own son to murder him.
To the person earlier in the thread who said many of Mullan's scenes in The Magdalene Sisters were 'over the top' - one former inmate of the laundries/asylums said the scenes in the film paled beside the real horrors she experienced there. So there you go.
"To the person earlier in the thread who said many of Mullan's scenes in The Magdalene Sisters were 'over the top' - one former inmate of the laundries/asylums said the scenes in the film paled beside the real horrors she experienced there. So there you go."
I said that Mullan's performance was over the top. I didn't say the scenes were. I think he was overacting.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!