16 Years of Alcohol (2003)

One of my all time favorites.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Excellent film about the problem of alcoholism; a problem keenly felt in the director's native Scotland.There is an autobiographical veracity about the whole thing, plus an intimate knowledge and use of Edinburgh locations, and songs by the magnificent Glasweigan band the Blue Nile. McKidd is a revelation as the central protagonist Frankie, Laura Fraser is, as always, effortlessly sexy.Yes, the film is rather portentous in tone and spare in cinematic style, but that tends to suit the subject. 'Creepy and sad'? 'More dull dross from a pretentious Scotsman'? Such IMDb user criticisms seem ridiculously unjustified to me, though users have a point when they criticise the film's lack of continuity at times: the characters not changing in appearance or dress across more than a decade's time-span. It might be nitpicking, but I think these people have a point; it does kind of undermine the verisimilitude that Jobson is aiming for.Overall, though, a fine film from that hard-boiled, all-round renaissance man, Richard Jobson. It seems some of his subsequent films seem less promising; a shame, as this film suggests that he could make films up there with the better Neil Jordan fare.

This film was terrible. I have given it the high score of 2 as I have seen worse, but very few.From the clichéd start of having the end of the film at the start and going back to the start at the end this film used everything in the box of tricks used in film making just for the sake of it, like a kid with too many toys. There was the endless, boring repetitive narration, slow motion, freeze frame, flashbacks and merged images etc - none of which made a dull film any better.It is called "16 years of alcohol", but there was little drinking or drunkeness and no depiction of withdrawal with the film jumping about all over the place with no coherent sense. The story was badly written and extremely pretentious and the direction was equally poor and it is a shame that people have put up further money for more films by Mr Jobson, previously know for being in a rubbish group and on TV making as much sense as this film does.I found it a major struggle to see this to the end but in the hope of it getting better I carried on to the bitter but it really was a waste of time and I would have been better off not bothering.

I really don't understand how come some people trash this movie! There is nothing wrong with: the acting is quite good, the direction is quite fresh, the music rules and the story is reasonably good.Yes, there are same scenes taken from Kubrick's work and the whole story is NOT original, but the setting in Scotland's capital is quite nice. I was pleasantly surprised by the actors,quite natural acting helped probably by a story that is very familiar to some of them:)Overall this film is well worth it and would expand your horizon of good European movies.A well deserved 7/10.

"Sixteen Years of Alcohol" is the Edinburgh story of a guy with a philandering dad who starts to drink at twelve or so, turns into a violent, alcoholic punker, and finally seeks self-reform. Early scenes depict Frankie, the young boy and his father. We then jump forward to the big, muscular Frankie Mack (Kevin McKidd) terrorizing pubs and shops with his three mates like Alex and his dogies in "A Clockwork Orange" but without Alex's archness and glee. Frankie also gets into fights with his own mates and woos Helen (Laura Fraser), who clerks in a record shop.Eventually the hero, whose brooding voice-overs constantly intrude, loses Helen, though for a while she seems to have tamed him and turned him from Mars into Artemis, bearer of good news -- as she puts it in a game they play on a colonnade perched high up above the town. Frankie gets stabbed and kicked senseless (S.O.P. for the hoodlums of this piece) and winds up in a twelve-step group for alcoholics -- but when he shares at a meeting, he tellingly substitutes for the classic AA declaration, "My name is Frankie, and I AM A VIOLENT MAN." He also joins an acting workshop with Mary (Susan Lynch), his new girl -- or recovery pal: there's no lovemaking or physical affection shown. One shot hints that Frankie's employed in a workshop or factory, but specific detail is lacking: the film is deliberately short on connected narrative, going for passion and poetry over mundane realism.There's truth in the 'Village Voice's' thumbnail description of "Sixteen Years of Alcohol" as a series of "static tableaux," and it's also true that McKidd's better than "the dubious romanticism and hard-man clichés of his role." Parts of the movie fall flat, but what makes it worth watching is an intense clarity about the people and the sharply lit scenes they're in. Also welcome to an American is that unlike some Scottish films this one's English is crystal clear too. There is the power and sincerity of the simple small film in "Sixteen Years of Alcohol," but also a lack of narrative focus and sense of a whole world one finds in England's Sixties "angry young man" films beginning with "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning." Jobson isn't trying for "kitchen sink" realism at all, but for something poetic and expressionistic; and the stark, strikingly lit photography helps him approach that goal and make this a watchable film.What's less appealing is the simplistic fatalism of the plot structure. One may wind up wishing Frankie had received more practical tips about how to stay off alcohol and violence, rather than focusing on his relationships with women, which aren't developed very far anyway. The "dubious romanticism" shows up in the way a life is ultimately seen as circular (as is the film's "ring" framing device) and doomed, rather than -- what would be equally justified by the story -- moderately hopeful. The chap is still young and healthy, after all, and he wants to get better. Why not suggest he's going in that direction? This is the first film for Jobson, previously known as the front man for the Seventies Scottish art punk band, the Skids, and, later as a poet, model, TV presenter, film producer and critic. He has not disgraced himself in this semi-autobiographical effort (the time-line follows that of his own Sixties childhood and Seventies youth). What one remembers are the stark sometimes beautiful images. The high-flown, overwrought writing can be cloying, but may also point in a fresh new direction. No Danny Boyle here, but rather, perhaps, a new style and voice.(Seen March 26, 2005 at Cinema Village in New York.)