Honestly, fellas, I don’t know how well I can review these two movies. For one, they aren’t typically what I enjoy watching. Sure, a human interest/drama/comedy film can be interesting or at least, entertaining (like Philomena or Lizzie Borden Took an Axe). But for another reason, I couldn’t understand 98% of what these fookers were going on about in the films. The heavy cockney British accents DO NOT make for easy listening. So I gleaned what I could from every 100th word I caught and the accompanying acting. Here goes nothing.
Riff Raff and Raining Stones are two films from Ken Loach. Apparently, he’s well known for creating movies about the poor/working class and their struggles with every day life, particularly during political change.
Riff Raff focuses on Stevie (a very young Robert Carlysle whose Scottish brogue is near impossible to translate), a drifter who finds work at a construction site. He squats in a nearby empty apartment, with the help of a few of his coworkers. The construction site has appalling safety conditions: read none at all. Anyone who brings that up is immediately sacked.
Stevie meets Susan, a lacking in talent singer but they hit it off. After moving in with him, he learns she’s a druggie. Maybe something you could have learned if you knew each other AT ALL before moving in together. After that relationship falls apart, one of Stevie’s coworkers dies on site. The obvious reaction to that is for Stevie and his buddy to burn the location down.