The Angels' Share

Ken Loach's fanciful comedy caper movie, set in working-class Glasgow, Scotland, features a wee dash of magical realism. At the center of The Angels' Share is malt whisky—the title itself derives from the small amount of liquid that naturally evaporates over time in the barrel cask. Caught in a hopelessly destructive cycle of poverty, criminality, and violence, Robbie (Paul Brannigan) is a local hoodlum with a straitlaced girlfriend (Siobhan Reilly), and infant son. After Robbie is spared from prison and given 300 hours of “community payback,” his work supervisor (John Henshaw)—who enjoys his nightly tipple—decides to take him and some other hooligans on an outing to a whisky distillery. Here, Robbie not only learns about the whisky-making process but also discovers that he has a connoisseur's nose for identifying different varieties—an olfactory skill that catches the attention of Thaddeus (Roger Allam), a slick high-end broker, while also earning the respect of whisky professional Rory McAllister (real-life scotch expert Charles Maclean). At another distillery, the auction date for an extremely rare cask of Malt Mill whiskey is rapidly approaching—with a million-dollar payout expected. Naturally, volatile Robbie and three other ne'er-do-wells head for the Scottish Highlands, bent on staging an unlikely heist. A sweet-natured, amusing film (which won the Jury Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival), this is recommended. [Note: DVD extras include deleted scenes (14 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a fine film.] (S. Granger)