Why
are youth increasingly leading a life of crime? One answer
emerges in Sweet Sixteen, which centers on Liam (played
by Martin Compston), a skinny but tough boy in Glasgow
who is fifteen years old for most of the film. At the beginning
of the film, his mother Jean (played by Michelle Coulter)
is in prison, with only a couple of months before her parole.
Liam lives with his father Stan (played by Gary McCormack)
and Jean's father (played by Tommy McKee); while the adults
sell drugs, Liam sells stolen cigarettes. Jean has taken
the fall for a crime committed by Stan, a minor drug dealer.
When Liam, Stan, and his grandfather visit Jean in prison
one day, Stan orders Liam to put some drugs into her mouth
while kissing her, but he refuses so as not to jeopardize
her release. After they leave the prison, Stan beats up
his son for botching a lucrative drug deal, and Liam is
told to move out. Liam's older sister Chantelle (played
by Annmarie Fulton) has fathered a child, Calum (played
by Calum McAlees), and lives on her own, and he visits
her a lot. Homeless after his father evicts him, she agrees
to have Liam live with her, provided that he takes care
of Calum while she is at work. Her apartment provides a
clear vantage point for observing Stan's residence, including
his hiding place for drugs. Liam and his friend Pinball
(played by William Ruane), another fifteen-year-older,
then rob Stan of his drugs one night. Liam uses the money
acquired from selling drugs to put a down payment on a
mobile home so that he and his mom will have a place to
live when she gets out of prison. However, Tony (played
by Martin McCardie), a druglord, soon learns that the young
duo has been enjoying some success in selling drugs, so
he takes Liam on as an apprentice, even testing to see
whether he would kill someone if ordered. Tony, however,
is not impressed with Pinball, to whom he gives a cold
shower and a cold shoulder. One day, the mobile home is
burned. Liam suspects that Stan is responsible, but in
fact Pinball has done so. Pinball also steals Tony's car
and crashes into the front window of his health club. Tony
then asks Liam to kill Pinball; in exchange, he will provide
a nice apartment in a fashionable part of town for Liam
and his mom. When Liam goes to see Pinball, ostensibly
to warn him that his life is in jeopardy, Pinball uses
a switchblade on himself and dies. Liam then gets keys
for the apartment, invites Chantelle to live in one of
the bedrooms with Calum, and soon hires a taxi to accompany
his mom to the apartment upon her release. After a happy "welcome
home" party that night, Jean is gone the following
morning. Blaming her departure on something that Chantelle
said at the party, Liam orders her to vacate the premises
and goes to Stan's flat to retrieve his mom. But Jean is
still very much in love with her husband. When Stan orders
Liam to leave without her, Liam loses his temper, uses
his switchblade, and Stan dies. When the film ends, the
police are looking for Liam. That day he celebrates his
sixteenth birthday. Director Ken Loach, as always, is providing
social commentary on the difficulties faced by those in
the working class. Similar to the director's My
Name Is Joe (1999), the film has English subtitles, as Americans
and even Londoners will not understand the patois of working-class
Glasgowers. Liam, a goodhearted boy who is corrupted by
his parents and bigger fish in the crime world, wants to
be kind to his mother, and in so doing to achieve redemption,
but alas the only way that he can conceive of supporting
his goal is by obtaining easy money from the sale of drugs.
No other option is available to him, and he is out of options
when the film ends. MH
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