Cast: Dean Andrews, Tom Craig, Joe Duttine, Steve Huison, Venn Tracey, Andy Swallow, Sean Glenn, Charlie Brown
Director: Ken Loach
Producer: Rebecca O'Brien
Screenplay: Rob Dawber
Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd, Mike Eley
Music: George Fenton
U.S. Distributor: First Look Pictures Releasing
Ken Loach's The Navigators is a hard-as-nails drama that, instead of offering viewers an escape from reality, forces them to face some of the colder facts about living in today's world. Loach's subject isn't terrorism, but something equally destructive and far more insidious - the way big businesses routinely discard faithful employees, rewarding long-term loyalty with a few weeks' severance pay and a cheerful goodbye. This is the kind of subject matter that will strike home painfully for many men and women in today's work force. And, while Loach includes occasional flashes of humor, this is predominantly a grim motion picture.
Loach has always been know as a filmmaker with a social conscience, as one look at his resume (which includes such titles as Riff-Raff, Ladybird, Ladybird, My Name Is Joe, and Bread and Roses) indicates. The Navigators fits in well with Loach's past efforts. The sense of character is not as strong here as it has been in the director's best outings (none of the protagonists in The Navigators is developed into a fully fleshed-out individual), but the issues are as clearly presented and thought-provoking as ever.
The movie deals specifically with the privatization of British Rail, which transpired during the mid-1990s, but the themes explored by Loach apply to countless other industries in today's world. The idea of company loyalty died with the '80s. Today, it's every man (or woman) for himself (or herself), as prized employees bounce from company to company, depending upon who offers the best salary and benefits. Meanwhile, "generic" workers often find themselves turned loose for no reason whatsoever, their job inexplicably "eliminated".
In 1995, British Rail left government control and the portion in South Yorkshire became East Midland Infrastructure. The employees were subjected to new buzz words and theories. Customer Satisfaction replaced safety and efficiency as the #1 priority. A "mission statement" was developed. And employees were subjected to demeaning and pedantic training films. Soon, workers found themselves facing uncertain futures with jobs that could be eliminated any day. High quality became a victim of the obsessive need to cut costs. Loach allows us to see the shortsightedness of these management policies without ever launching into a didactic sermon. He doesn't have to – we instinctively believe everything we see on screen because many of us have experienced this in our everyday work environment.
As is typically the case, Loach coaxes effective performance out of unknown actors. This is one way he keeps the films more real and immediate, believing that familiar faces can distort the gritty, near-documentary style he prefers. The Navigators would have been a more powerful feature had we developed a stronger emotional connection with one or more of the characters (we see occasional snapshots of their home lives, but nothing substantive), but, even as it is, this is a worthwhile motion picture whose central topic will resonate with many who see it.
© 2003 James Berardinelli