Way over-sentimental British nostalgia piece, Brassed Off tells the charming yet unabsorbing plight of late 1980s/early 1990s coal miners who find their mine being closed down. The refuge they take is in their music, a brass band that goes from wretched to fabulous after the arrival of Fitzgerald, who's (surprise) on the team responsible for shutting down their mine. The triumph-over-adversity fable has been done to death, decade after decade, and Brassed Off has little to add to the genre.

Despite years of watching Monty Python, even I had trouble with the thick accents. It's plainly obvious that the actor's aren't playing their instruments, but if you can convince yourself that coal mining is a good thing that should be encouraged at all cost, then this film is for you.