Very well executed

Really Surprised!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Joe (Peter Mullan) is a guy who has seen it all before. A former alcoholic, he kicked his habit. Now he is unemployed but is paradoxically very active since he trains a little football team and interests himself in young Liam who has a brush with the local underground for a story of unpaid drugs with his young spouse Sabine. He falls in love with Sarah, a social worker who brings them help and support. The two people fall in love whereas to help Liam, Joe is ready to break the law and to do shady jobs for the mobsters. Will his relationship with Sarah be affected by this?When he places his camera in the popular neighborhoods of a big city eaten away by unemployment, Ken Loach is the defender of the outcasts who are very strongly linked by friendship and mutual support, like Joe here with his tiny football team. Loach refuses to feel pity for them and shots the outset of his film with energy and generosity. Where he also grabs the audience and impresses her is his master at supple cinematographic writing. "My Name is Joe" starts up first time with a humorist perspective that the filmmaker will try to keep to the maximum. You have to see Joe and his sidekick who pretend to be professional house painters to Sarah's. Then, as Liam and Sabine's trouble grow and with Joe's decision to help them, the tone becomes darker, blacker and is here to remind us that we are in Loach's universe. His characters in spite of their big efforts are caught up in a sad fate. In the end, Loach runs the whole gamut of tones with ability in a quite gloomy plot.The arresting performance of Peter Mullan helps to make Loach's 1998 film more appealing and it's one to discover or rediscover.

Joe is an alcoholic, manager of the worst amateur football team in Glasgow and generally a good man getting through life one day at a time. When he gets involved in a dispute with health worker Sarah over one of his team (Liam) it serves as an introduction to one another. A first "date" bowling proves a fun night one and tentatively they start a relationship together. However while they try to form their own perfect little place with their feelings being more important than anything else, the harsh realities of life start to pressure them as Liam gets in deeper and deeper trouble with a local drug dealer over his wife's debts.Ken Loach is not really a man to come to if you are looking for an easy romantic comedy. Although My Name is Joe has tender moments and some quite sensual scenes, it is very much set in the world of the losers, the people we call scum, the people we never see. In that regard it is a typical mix of the good and bad of the human spirit crossed with the rough humour and pitfalls of being near or on the poverty line. They are not themes that we haven't seen before but as usual, Loach does it really well – drawing us in so that even a world we have no knowledge of is convincing and real. The story may not be an everyday tale of the daily grind but it is engaging and real all the same. Loach's direction helps this as he delivers every scene with a natural air and he draws out good performances from his cast.Mullan rightly hogs the limelight with a performance that is charming without losing sight of the pit that his character is barely out of. He is natural and he drives the film forward from the heart. Goodall works well alongside him. She is as wary as one would expect of her character but yet she has a good yet cautious chemistry with Mullan. McKay has a simpler character but he carries it off really well and just about keeps him sympathetic. The rest of the cast are very much secondary but there are also good performances from Kennedy, Lewis and others.Overall this is not a fun night in but then you already knew that. What it does do is to paint a poignant story of love on the bread line, of the struggles of poverty and addiction and it does it all in a way that is natural and engaging. Bleak and uplifting at the same time and a fine example of what it is that Ken Loach does well.

A very realistic story about a 38 year old man, let 's say my age. He had problems with alcohol but is doing his best to improve his live. He has the energy of a young man and also is admired by a young social worker. The feelings of love are profound and touching. But the problems, now I 'm talking about the external problems he suffers by trying to help a young couple, are very eminent and realistic too.I recomment this movie in the strongest way, altough I have to say that I never heard so many bad language in a movie. :o)

I came across this film by accident on video, and I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality. Ken Loach is again at his best using little known or non-actors set in a British working class background. Joe is a reformed alcoholic on the dole in Glasgow, trying to pick his life up again. Loach's vision and understanding of life close to the limit is amazing.For me, this is a "must see" film.