Kings (2007)

I love any good Irish film and really want to see this. When I first saw the writeup on a few different sites I decided to look into it before I got the movie. And after reading everyones comments Im even more confused. Im guessing the movie is not spoken in English? I've always thought the Irish spoke English with an Irish accent. However, everyone's comments say differently. To make this even more confusing, someone commented that they wanted the movie spoken in Irish and not English. Yet they wrote there comment in English.... IM CONFUSED.Could someone clarify if this is in fact English with an Irish accent or is there some language I don't know about. Also if it is not spoken in English, could someone verify if the "English version" of the movie has an alternate title here in the US.Thank you

Saw this at the Stony Brook Film Festival last night and was amazed to find (a) a nearly full house and (b) the audience got it. As an Irishman who lived in London in the 1960's I am well aware of the characters and their sad, difficult lives. (The years were a bit off as the film claimed they emigrated in 1977 - more like 10 years earlier). I had also seen the play it was based on "The Kings of the Kilburn High Road" a few years back. The play, if I recall correctly, is set entirely in the back room of the bar. The acting is first rate and while most of the dialogue is in Irish, with subtitles, it really works. This was a strange experience, to see a film about Irishmen and needing subtitles to understand everything being said. Not surprisingly, Colm Meaney lends heft to the film and the part of Joe. He always does. Well worth seeing although I wonder who the audience is for such a film? There are thousands of Irishmen still in England who lived lives like these poor unfortunates.

Overall this was an excellent film, the story was good, and so was the acting. the only thing that I found difficult was the fact that it as in a language I didn't understand, so I had to read the subtitles. Don't get me wrong after a while you get used to it, and you can still enjoy the film 100 percent. other than that it is a very good film, that I would recommend! Also another aspect of this film was that the characters were very, very real. they all had different personalities. the only thing was, being from a very different country couldn't get their names until we were halfway into the film, so it did get a little confusing, but never the less I stand by what I said in the first paragraph, that this was a very well done film. And although it was a story that was sadder then most, it did have parts that were happy, even funny! it wasn't all sad and depressing. so yes, this is a good, very good film to see, so I recommend it!

Kings is a very fine film. It is a haunting, melancholic portrait of lost souls, the people on our streets who once belonged to some place, somewhere in another time, but who have fallen out of touch with the world around them. Director Tom Collins seizes on this feeling of loneliness and misplacement and forces us to confront it, as we immerse ourselves in the lives of Git, Jap, Máirtín, Shay and Joe. The haunting, ghostly memory of Jackie makes us also mourn his passing, as he appears to his friends between sleeping and waking, between day and night.Indeed the film itself feels caught in time between dusk and dawn, as the characters let the world pass by in the final third of the film, when an ominous, creeping awareness invades on their drunken reverie. The atmosphere is one of a suspended moment – the group of friends toast their lost companion in an eerie, empty back room, whilst muffled noise just creeps in from the bar outside. The Irish language they speak amongst themselves reflects the otherness of their lives, their misplacement in this world. As they leave and come back, it is as if they move from one world to the other, and when they finally go, they could be gone forever.With excellent performances and a taut script, the evocative cinematography and soundtrack make this an achingly sad and beautiful work that is timeless in it's relevance.