Product Details

• Actors: Robert Carlyle, Rhys Ifans, Kathy Burke, Vanessa Feltz, Ricky Tomlinson
• Directors: Shane Meadows
• Writers: Shane Meadows, Paul Fraser
• Producers: Andrea Calderwood, Claire Hunt, Hanno Huth, James Wilson, Louise Knight
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: February 10, 2004
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00011V8J0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,379 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Once Upon a Time in the Midlands" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When Jimmy Comes Back to His Ex-Wife... Amusing UK Drama, September 23, 2004

By 

Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (DVD)

Though the title sounds like a Sergio Leone film, or any Italian made Westerns, 'Once Upon a Time in Midlands' is a low-key British comedy-drama starring Robert Carlyle ('Full Monty'), Kathy Burke (Nil By Mouth'), Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle in 'Harry Potter'), and Rhys Ifans ('Notting Hill'). Opinions divide among the viewers, especially the critics who find similar themes in recent UK films -- like gangsters -- but the similarity is only on the surface.

Robert Carlyle is a Scotsman Jimmy, who happens to have see his ex-wife Shirley (Shirley Henderson) on TV show (imagine British Jerry Springer show). There, another guy, Welshman Dek (surprisingly normal Ifans) asks Shirley to marry him, holding a bundle of flowers. Contrary to his expectations, he is rejected. Now that's a sign for Jimmy to reclaim the once lost love.

From Glasgow (where he is involved in a petty crime such as robbing clowns), Jimmy returns Shirley's home in the Midlands (part located in north of London). Can he get back her love? Or her daughter who considers Dek is her father? And what will those three criminals do, who follow Jimmy from Scotland to this town? Can Dek hold his own, and keep Shirley's love to the end?

It is not hard to tell the outcomes, and you know the answer. Kathy Burke plays the nagging middle-aged woman who loves bingo games, uses very bad languages, but still has a heart of gold. Carlyle is also the same kind of guy you saw in 'Trainspotting' -- when he is in good mood, he could be a nice guy, but potentially he could raise hell, and we know it. I don't say they are typecast; but some might think so.

But at the heart of the film there is a generous, feel-good mood, which manage to raise the film one notch up above the average British films. Director Shane Meadows handles the characters with certain kind of tenderness, and that feeling is conveyed to you very naturally.

With evocative Western score, the film often looks as if parodying the rules of the Western film genre. In fact, the film has a distict tinge of a British one, with a slightly comic touch. (And accents are thick, but you can understand them as the story goes on.) Look at this one as a family drama, and you will be entertained pretty much.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A major disappointment, October 15, 2006

By 

Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (DVD)

From the days when it was a legal requirement to cast either Robert Carlyle or Rhys Ifans if you wanted to get lottery funding for a British film, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is another in Shane Meadows' line of deeply disappointing films before he finally came into his own with Dead Man's Shoes. To be fair, the project went through major development Hell, and the results are all too obvious in the sketchy construction and characterization. Carlyle's bad boy spurred into winning back his wife Shirley Henderson (sporting the most irritating little girly voice in history) from nice guy Ifans after seeing her on a daytime TV show is never really developed or even properly introduced, and the plot, such as it is, doesn't get going until the movie is half over. The tone is awkward, with Carlyle opting for convincingly unpleasant naturalism while Ifans lapses too often into sitcom acting, leaving the acting honors to go to Kathie Burke. There are a couple of excellent moments at a park bandstand and a final confrontation that hint at a better film that could have been, but it's all too easy to share Meadows' own disappointment with the film as a whole.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars average love story, March 15, 2005

By 

EriKa "E" (Iceland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (DVD)

Robert Carlyle is brilliant in this kind of role-violent, shiftless, abusive guy who somehow lulls those closest to him into a certain blindness and obeisance to his brutality. He reappears on the scene in his ex-girlfriend's life when he sees quiet, mild-mannered Dek (Rhys Ifans) proposing to Shirley on a tv talk show. When she refuses the proposal, Jimmy (Carlyle) sees it as his grand opportunity to claim the one who got away. Shirley is portrayed by Shirley Henderson, who seems to pop up in small, unusual but often pivotal roles (24 Hour Party People, for example). When Jimmy resurfaces, Dek cowers, backs down, not fighting for the woman he loves, much to the disappointment of Shirley's precocious child, who considers Dek her father.

Eventually Dek finds his nerve and sends Jimmy packing, but only once he hits rock bottom and decided to take what's rightfully his-not by resorting to stupidity but by using his love, sensitivity and stability.