Brassed Off

The timing couldn't be more curious. Just as Tony Blair unseats John Major, to become the first non-Conservative prime minister of Britain in 18 years, along comes this politically charged drama that attributes the plight of the British coal miner to Margaret Thatcher and the Tories.

Director Mark Herman conveys England's controversial mine-pit-closure program in a dark, docudrama style that echoes the gritty realism achieved in the works of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. The focus for Herman's depressing, all-too-narrow agenda is a brass band of spirited coal laborers. Pete Postlethwaite plays the troop's soulful leader, who dreams of getting the band to Albert Hall and a shot at the national championship, though the rest of the members don't share his optimism as the closing of the town's pit looms. Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald (who was so disarming in Sirens) round out the cast, providing the band's youthful face, but the real discovery here is Stephen Tompkinson as Postlethwaite's son, who loses everything in the oncoming wave of economic hardship. His down-and-almost-out performance is devastating. Opens Friday at the Avon.

-- Tom Meek