Imdb Ranking 7.5
"Over the years generations of Irish people emigrated to escape poverty and unemployment at home.
Thousands found work on the building sites of England. Many settled in North London, in places like Camden Town and Kilburn."
Kings is the story of six young men who left their homes in 1977 Coanmara, West Ireland, and went to make their fortune in England. Flash forward thirty years to London. The men speak Gaelic to each other and seem to be living lives of quiet desperation. They speak Gaelic to each other, and when one of them, Jackie. dies in an accident they head back to Ireland and reunite at his wake.
Before the trip back, Git sells his father's watch. Joe comes to the door of the church for the funeral in England but couldn't go in. Mairtin is off the drink for the sake of his wife and family.
We see in flashbacks how Shay had let Jackie go from his job for drinking. jap and Gil get a bottle and start drinking in an alley. They talk of how Jackie left their apartment when he got sober.
The men meet later in a pub called Connamara, and Joe is already there. Joe feels guilty, about the way he didn't take care of Jackie. He has fifty men working for him but Jackie wasn't one of them. Jap is barred from the bar, so they have to move to a back room. The boys sing Danny Boy and give each other a hard time.
Git talks to Joe about starting a business, he and Jap are thinking about starting something back home up he tells Joe. We see Joe, in a flashback being the first to leave the apartment, and telling Jackie he couldn't come along. We then see Mairtin talking to his wife, His wife made him give up Jackie and the drink, because they went together. Mairtin wants to go with his mates, but his wife will leave him.
The boys then start singing a song in Gaelic, and then Mairtin shows up and starts drinking to Jackie. The men then start singing rebel songs and dancing in a line out in the bar, and out on to the street. Joe buys drinks for any one they may have offended.
We see a flashback of Git and Jackie going to Joe's construction site for a job, but the foreman won't let them in, and Joe won't come out. The men start talking about how they really don't have a home now. They have been in England much longer then they were in Ireland.
Git tells about Jackie's last night. He saw Jackie throw himself in front of the train, but told his father he slipped. Git says that Jackie told him he had called Joe a couple of times to tell him he was sober, but Joe didn't take his calls.
Bitter accusations fly across the room as the whiskey goes down. Joe gets attacked by Jap for being wealthy. Joe feels guilty about not helping Jackie and he leaves. Everyone leaves but Jap keeps drinking by himself. Later Git went back and got him. Joe tells Git that they could have been Kings.
Not a happy movie. It is the story of rootless men, who had to leave their homes in order to survive. They were outsiders living in a hostile environment. Having the movie in the Gaelic language was a huge plus for me.
