The Angel's Share (2012)

The director of this film, Ken Loach, has a style that this movie doesn't break with.  He is known for his work depicting the most down trodden amongst us with an unsparing lens.  This movie is not nearly as funny as the cover would have you believe, nor is it at its core heartwarming either.

Here is the story, which takes place in Glasgow.  Robbie is a young man who has grown up in a lower class neighborhood with a rough crowd he has fought all his life.  He explains it to his girlfriend and the mother of his newborn son when she asks why he is being beaten up and beating up the same group of hoodlums.  "My father grew up fighting with their fathers."  She says it ends here, with their son, but would it?  How would that happen?  Robbie has already done prison time, and the movie opens with him court on yet another assault charge.  He gets community service and between the help of Harry, his community service supervisor, and his girlfriend, he manages to find a way out of the perpetual cycle of violence and embark on a new trajectory.  It is nicely done.