The Martins
2001
THE MARTINS is a Ken Loach style comically tinged drama about a working class English family from TV drama director Tony Grounds. After failing to win a holiday in a competition, jobless Robert Martin (Lee Evans) embarks on a crime spree in an effort to please his children and long suffering wife (played by the always excellent .. Read more
| Starring | Lee Evans, Kathy Burke, Linda Bassett, Eric Byrne |
|---|---|
| Director | Tony Grounds |
| Genres | Comedy |
loading...
The Martins
THE MARTINS is a Ken Loach style comically tinged drama about a working class English family from TV drama director Tony Grounds. After failing to win a holiday in a competition, jobless Robert Martin (Lee Evans) embarks on a crime spree in an effort to please his children and long suffering wife (played by the always excellent Kathy Burke) but with less than successful results
| Starring | Lee Evans, Kathy Burke, Linda Bassett, Eric Byrne, Terri Dumont, Frank Finlay |
|---|---|
| Director | Tony Grounds |
| Studio | ICON HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 23 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Comedy |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 18 Mar 2002 Production year: 2001 |
| Format | DVD |
-
Critics' reviews (2)
View all -
Crassly sold as a knockabout comedy, this fares better if approached as a tragic drama about social exclusion. The eponymous family are basically Hatfield's “neighbours from hell” — unemployable dad, pregnant 14-year-old daughter et al. It is to the credit of writer/first-time-director Tony Grounds (creator of the BBC's Births, Marriages and Deaths) that these apparent undesirables elicit such sympathy. Robert (a nicely understated Lee Evans) loves Angie (Kathy Burke) and both would do anything for their family. Unfortunately this stretches to armed robbery, and thus we have the film's essentially comedic, runaway plot. Sad rather than hilarious, and richer for that, it still falls between stools. And Linda Bassett's grotesque mum-in-law is the weakest link.
-
A star vehicle for a comedian who has yet to prove himself a star on screen, and this witless hotchpotch won't help.
-
Most helpful member's review
View all -
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Surprisingly moving and very British
The British love the underdog and few people know this as well as the comic Lee Evans. So first-time director Tony Grounds must have felt on sure ground when he cast Evans as a feckless dreamer living on benefits and for ever entering hopeless competitions. The kind of person, in fact, whom the National Lottery was devised to fleece...
Don't expect a laugh a minute but more a very moving, almost too sentimental story about a man's personal odyssey from a disturbed mental state akin to arrested childhood into true adulthood. Kathy Burke and Linda Bassett shine as Evans's long-suffering wife and awful, shrewish mum in law. -
Most recent members' review
View all -
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Surprisingly moving and very British
The British love the underdog and few people know this as well as the comic Lee Evans. So first-time director Tony Grounds must have felt on sure ground when he cast Evans as a feckless dreamer living on benefits and for ever entering hopeless competitions. The kind of person, in fact, whom the National Lottery was devised to fleece...
Don't expect a laugh a minute but more a very moving, almost too sentimental story about a man's personal odyssey from a disturbed mental state akin to arrested childhood into true adulthood. Kathy Burke and Linda Bassett shine as Evans's long-suffering wife and awful, shrewish mum in law. -
More like this
View all
Related user collection
dvds rented (10)
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
-
-
-
The Martins
THE MARTINS is a Ken Loach style comically tinged drama about a working class English family from TV drama director Tony Grounds. After failing to win a holiday in a competition, jobless Robert Martin (Lee Evans) embarks on a crime spree in an effort to please his children and long suffering wife (...
-