Rent Peterloo (2018)

Ironically, as condescending as the upper-classes it sets out to mock. - Peterloo review by TR

I don't like being fed expository dialogue about the Corn Laws and Habeus Corpus, like I was some uneducated idiot. I expect authenticity and scenes that aren't just a series of speeches lazily stitched together. I've long since lost faith in Mike Leigh, but this represents a new low. Condescending and full of its own self-importance, not unlike the elites it purports to mock.

Long & boring - Peterloo review by Sandy

The film starts two weeks before the Peterloo massacre and then spends 2 hours getting to the massacre itself. So we have a procession of talking heads going on about the demonstration, what they want and the emphasis that the demonstration is supposed to be peaceful. Then the demonstration happens and the authorities react with violence. It is a true life account, but it is so dull. The film achieves in two and a half hours what a documentary would do in one hour. Yes, Peterloo was an important event in Britain's history, but the film rather misses this point - as what happened after the event is as important as what happened before it - and that's what is missed. I'm sure some history students would find this interesting, but it is story telling by numbers.

Disappointing - Peterloo review by CP Customer

No shortage of money spent on scenery, props and extras. You just wonder why this story justified such expenditure. Who authorised it?

It's done well enough but never really captures the moment. There are much better ways to spend over two hours of your life.

From Waterloo to Peterloo - Peterloo review by RhysH

Of course Peterloo has a resonance for today, protests are taking place all over the world, against governments, against austerity, against the fact that the rich and privileged always rule.

The film has little in the way of nuance, the villains are hideous caricatures of the ruling elite in particular Karl Johnson as the bumbling arrogant home secretary. What a great gift for an actor to play someone so odious. All the ruling class have stepped straight out of a Steve Bell cartoon.

The working class , the protesters are without exception and without being patronising, the salt of the earth. Their cause was just but did they know that their protestations were doomed?

Mike Leigh says that Peterloo should be taught in schools, his film would be a great starting point an essay in political history and a masterclass in film making.

Excellent piece of history - Peterloo review by IanF

Peterloo gives you a powerful impression of it's time in history - 1819 - a strange, long ago time when we do not really understand how hard and different things were. This is a powerful, big scale film of a little known story. Well acted, well filmed, long but engrossing. They should show it in history lessons in secondary schools. It was a time when demanding one man/ one vote could get you locked up, shot, or as in this film, run through with a sabre by a charging cavalryman.

Overlong Socialist Polemic about an Interesting Historical Event - Peterloo review by PV

Mike Leigh often focuses on left wing causes and improvised dialogue etc - and this film is worth watching if only for the interesting dialect (still present in places like Sheffield where they say YourSEN not yourself). But it is a bit of a long slog.

Now I know some won't hear a word said against Mike Leigh and his stablemate Ken Loach, but the sad fact is these two have enjoyed way too much praise and subsidy for what has been mediocre work, despite their 1970s triumphs.

Good to see this event in a film despite all the bias and the wicked King George IV such a cartoon character baddie he could have had a waxed moustache. The Great Reform Act 1832 is something that deserves a film too.

So interesting but not a triumph.

Boring - Peterloo review by CH

So disappointed in this film - for me it was boring, amateurish and badly acted. I’m sure it was historically accurate but I think Sally Wainwright could have made a much better job of it.  I had visited Quarry Bank  on the day and was so looking forward to seeing the re-enactment on the 200th anniversary of the event.