Having watched a lot of recent Hollywood blockbusters and thrillers of which of which THE PURGE sequel ANARCHY was the most gripping and thought provoking I thought perhaps I should diversify my viewing a bit . THE WEE MAN is a low budget crime bio-pic centered around Paul Ferris who was something of a cause celebre career criminal from a couple of decades back where he was found not guilty of a double murder . Now I'm not a big fan of these type of films because they're not very good and always seem to have the production values of a TV Sunday drama but a change is as good as a rest and sat down to watch THE WEE MAN . Within a very short period I thought was watching a remake of another film - a Scottish remake of THE PURGE !
Supposedly set in Glasgow it presents the city as a lawless wasteland where murders , rapes , stabbings and scalpings are everyones favourite past time . It's no good calling the cops because they're too busy organising death squads to abduct and maim passer bys . Is it any surprise that young Paul Ferris grows up to be a criminal , but please don't condemn him because he only kills and maims other criminals who did something to deserve it - or that's what the film is trying to tell us . I'm from Edinburgh so there's no way I'd be sticking up for Glasgow unless that city deserved it and this film is so bad I feel the need to defend the majority of Glaswegians who are friendly happy go lucky salt of the Earth types
You don't have to be a career criminal to think if there's not only serious exaggeration but downright lies are going on here , same as you don't have to have ever served a prison sentence to know that the screws aren't going to just open up a cell and let you commit murder to get rid of a rival That's not how things work in Britain , maybe in South America or some other third world prison but not in Britain
Some people on this page have pointed out many factual errors so allow me to contribute something I know is totally incorrect - the scene where Thompson Snr gives Ferris a safe house in Rothesay . Cut to a scene where Ferris and his wife stop their car outside a mansion that later ends with a police raid . Thompson did indeed have a holiday flat in Rothesay that got raided while Ferris was staying there but that's all it was - a holiday flat in a tenement which coincidentally is the same Rothesay street I lived in for four years , not some sprawling mansion with landscapes of hills . The only thing you'd see from the window would be the tenement opposite . This factual embellishment sums up this truly dreadful ugly film . Some things might have happened in reality at the most basic level but not anything like is portrayed here with massacres taking place left , right and centre . No wonder no one in Scotland wanted to co-operate with the production and had to be filmed in England due to the way it insults Scotland and its greatest asset -its people
Supposedly set in Glasgow it presents the city as a lawless wasteland where murders , rapes , stabbings and scalpings are everyones favourite past time . It's no good calling the cops because they're too busy organising death squads to abduct and maim passer bys . Is it any surprise that young Paul Ferris grows up to be a criminal , but please don't condemn him because he only kills and maims other criminals who did something to deserve it - or that's what the film is trying to tell us . I'm from Edinburgh so there's no way I'd be sticking up for Glasgow unless that city deserved it and this film is so bad I feel the need to defend the majority of Glaswegians who are friendly happy go lucky salt of the Earth types
You don't have to be a career criminal to think if there's not only serious exaggeration but downright lies are going on here , same as you don't have to have ever served a prison sentence to know that the screws aren't going to just open up a cell and let you commit murder to get rid of a rival That's not how things work in Britain , maybe in South America or some other third world prison but not in Britain
Some people on this page have pointed out many factual errors so allow me to contribute something I know is totally incorrect - the scene where Thompson Snr gives Ferris a safe house in Rothesay . Cut to a scene where Ferris and his wife stop their car outside a mansion that later ends with a police raid . Thompson did indeed have a holiday flat in Rothesay that got raided while Ferris was staying there but that's all it was - a holiday flat in a tenement which coincidentally is the same Rothesay street I lived in for four years , not some sprawling mansion with landscapes of hills . The only thing you'd see from the window would be the tenement opposite . This factual embellishment sums up this truly dreadful ugly film . Some things might have happened in reality at the most basic level but not anything like is portrayed here with massacres taking place left , right and centre . No wonder no one in Scotland wanted to co-operate with the production and had to be filmed in England due to the way it insults Scotland and its greatest asset -its people