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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Aisling Walsh (writer) &
Kevin Byron Murphy (writer) ...
more
Release Date:
22 August 2003 (Denmark) more
Tagline:
Four walls. One faith. No identity. more
Plot:
"Song for a Raggy Boy" is based on the true story of a single teacher's courage to stand up against an untouchable prefect's sadistic disciplinary regime and other abuse in a Catholic Reformatory and Industrial School in 1939 Ireland. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
14 wins & 6 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(5 articles)
'The Guards' Shoot Underway in Galway
(From IFTN. 27 October 2009, 12:29 AM, PDT)
Updates: Top 50 Hottest Young Actors - Rising Stars!
(From The Movie Fanatic. 30 September 2009, 11:19 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
Overly simplistic history lesson of Roman Catholic atrocity more (29 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Aidan Quinn | ... | William Franklin | |
| Iain Glen | ... | Brother John | |
| Marc Warren | ... | Brother Mac | |
| Dudley Sutton | ... | Brother Tom | |
| Alan Devlin | ... | Father Damian | |
| Stuart Graham | ... | Brother Whelan | |
| John Travers | ... | Liam Mercier 636 | |
| Chris Newman | ... | Patrick Delaney 743 | |
| Andrew Simpson | ... | Gerard Peters 458 | |
| Mark Butler | ... | Downey 913 | |
| Bernard Manning | ... | Rogers 855 | |
| Samuel Bright | ... | Ryan 126 | |
| Robert Sheehan | ... | O Reilly 58 | |
| Caoimhin 'Tojo' Barra Doherty | ... | Murphy 338 (as Caoimhin 'Tojo' Barry Doherty) | |
| Michael McGee | ... | Lynch 76 |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Drengene fra Skt. Judes (Denmark)
Los Ninos de San Judas (Spain: Catalan title)
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Parents Guide:
Runtime:
100 min
Language:
Color:
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Argentina:16 | Portugal:M/16 | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R16 | Ireland:15PG
Filming Locations:
Company:
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Another Roman-Catholic bashing film that comes hot on the heels of The Magdalene Sisters and in a very similar tone. Young adolescent boys that have got into trouble are incarcerated in a 1930s Irish Reformatory School. There they receive fascist style floggings and rape at the hands of the priests. All based on a true story and quite horrific to watch - one scene of two boys being flogged almost to death is remarkably similar to the same scene in Passion of Christ where 'Jesus' is tortured before crucifixion.
Whether the film makes any significant contribution is another matter. Even in an age when courts worldwide seem embattled over paedophile Roman Catholic priests, most people are now aware of the moral paucity of that religious order without ever questioning it. Forgiveness is handed out like a rosary, pointing to the good works the church does. Even a Michael Moore might have gone a little bit further and made some comment on what has been done to prevent similar abuses in the present day and the future, or raised awareness about other catastrophes waiting to happen. Or perhaps list in the closing credits some statistics, good and bad. Even Capturing the Friedmans puts forward a real moral dilemma inasmuch as the perpetrators of abuse are also people who have done much good. Song for a Raggy Boy does none of this and so, together with the rather cheesy clichés about the 'good teacher' standing up to the evil of the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps suggests to a sated audience that the horrors portrayed might be inspired by gratuitous or commercial interest rather than documentarian passion and the fight for human rights / goodness. The simplistic approach undermines what could have been a powerful statement. Failure to distinguish and contrast the Church hierarchy, its dominance, false sanctity and the way its main players are protected, on the one hand, with the decency of the many ordinary catholics on the other, may not only rob the film of its true potential but cause people to feel embittered at being lumped together in the same religion. That the Roman Catholic Church has been capable of so much evil through its history should not cause us to hate the millions of people born into that religion, just as we should not associate modern fundamentalist Islam (and its terrorist offspring) with the millions of loving Muslims. A fleeting reference to Catholic atrocity in the Spanish Civil War is again portrayed in black and white terms, without hard historical facts that could have been appended, or any context - leaving the viewer to either be aware of the politics and religious links to fascism or dismiss them as over-embroidery. Ultimately, films such as Raggy Boy need to go more accurately to the root of the psychological dynamics that allow such evil to flourish.