What the frik have I just watched? Your man there was grand in cardboard gangsters he was but this is really terrible bar a few good scenes like when they visit the others in masks the forest moving was awesome you should have done more with this! .

'Travellers" are a culturally distinct, nomadic peoples, who camp along the fringes of urban Irish (and to a lesser extent English and American) society. Recent genetic research tells us that the split between Travellers (or Pavees)and the "settled" folk of Éire began a millennium ago. Clanish and self-isolated, they are "among the most discriminated- against ethnic groups in Ireland".

"King of the Travellers" begins brilliantly with a lead-in of old black and white documentary footage of humble Traveller families, spliced with some great rough Irish céilí music and documentary-style footage of the film's cast in character. This sets the tone for a movie that, although it's fiction, realistically sums up the hard life of a people trying to hang on to its cultural heritage in the face of the growing hegemonies of modern Ireland. Conflicts within families and between families, between cliques and clans, between neighbors and officialdom highlight both the earthy bent of, and the ever-increasing restrictions on, the Traveller life style.

Writer-director Mark O'Connor toys with Shakespearean themes as well; and somewhat unevenly. It's hard sometimes to guess his intentions, to know for certain what kind of movie we're watching. We get hints of Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer's Night Dream, along with quotes and references to other films too; "The Godfather" has been mentioned by critics, and to my eye, there are certainly nods to Kusturica's "Time of the Gypsies." But the Irish landscape and its people and horses- and its music- are easily able to carry the aesthetic weight of the film. Many of the players are Travellers themselves and they perform admirably well: we seldom think of them as amateur actors but are able to accept them as authentic characters. It isn't hard to intuit the real cultural gap between them and the "settled" population, nor, at the same time, to see the common humanity both sides share.

Prejudice gets stirred up by transgression, real and perceived; it grows in a climate of ignorance and matures when greed and political necessity replace honest judgement; the examination of this process, as it buffets the innocent, constitutes the real theme of "King of the Travellers".

But besides leading us on a virtual tour of the realities of an embattled group of people, the director wants us to feel the gypsy pull of freedom; he would like us to sense the joyous possibility of an ethical reality outside the stricture of law. Maybe that's a prototypical kind of fantasy, but O'Connor, who doesn't romanticize his Travellers much, makes us wonder.

So what if this film is occasionally heavy handed? It presents an unfamiliar reality with good will and sympathy; and there are moments of real beauty in it. If you want my advice, don't suspend your disbelief- instead, simply accept that you're being told a story by an honest bard, a story well worth hearing.

The cover for this release makes it look like it's little more than a movie about traveller families belting the hell out of one another in bare knuckle fights but this movie is much more than that.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it is one of the best movies I have ever seen about the travelling community full stop.

One of the things that I really liked is the fact that a lot of the scenes feel authentic, almost as if they have come out of a documentary about their way of life. That is down to a brilliantly simple but effective movie. As well as actors, the cast is also made up of real life travellers and I think that helped to keep the movie authentic instead of being a melodramatic attempt at recreating their lives.

Another good move is the fact that they use traditional Irish and traveller songs instead of resorting to whatever songs are popular at the time. This really helped with the atmosphere and in my experience, really drew me in to what was going on during the movie.

The quick, sharp directing style of Mark O'Connor is tempered with some really subtle and slow moving moments as well, which allows for the growth of the characters. There are also some very shocking moments but the characters have been built up so well that you really feel for them whenever anything happens to any of them.

The love story between the two main characters is very well done and doesn't once fall in to melodrama. While some have described it as a lesser man's 'Romeo and Juliet', I think that is incredibly unfair. It's the story of two young travellers who want nothing more complicated than to be left to be in love with one another and be left alone yet circumstances seem determined to not allow that to happen.

Cast wise, the movie is packed with some brilliant performances. The best of these by far is John Connors as John Paul. He gives both a sympathetic and powerful performance that is so effective that I couldn't take my eyes off of him whenever he was in a scene. I would definitely watch another movie with him just to see how good he can be in another environment.

All in all, this was an effective, well shot and well acted drama about life as a traveller but it doesn't just stay as that, in fact the movie itself has a very strong message about how violence can breed violence no matter how justified you may feel in wanting to retaliate, which can sometimes lead to very tragic circumstances.

Well worth picking up.

Movie 4/5