The Navigators (2001)

Be grateful for a filmmaker like Ken Loach, who wants to dig around in the turf that American films, both Hollywood and so-called independent, have ignored for years in favor of whiz-bang special-effects blockbusters or thumb-sucking "personal" stories. Loach wants us to see how working-class people get marginalized in deceptively simple ways. New owners of a company don't necessarily fire the employees they can't "afford" to keep. They make offers of attractive severance packages and then insult those who remain on the job with reduced work schedules and by hiring their former mates as day workers at better hourly wages, just without the attendant perks like insurance and leave days. "The days of jobs for life are over," the rail workers are told, but the pronouncement doesn't seem to sink in. These guys are moderately happy with their jobs and can't understand why the status quo can't be maintained. They belong to an era in which hard-won labor union concessions are a distant memory and corporate masters feel little sense of obligation to their employees. Where Loach (and his screenwriter, Rob Dawber) comes up short is in individualizing the characters to offer more depth and a more truly felt sense of identification from the audience. Paul (Joe Duttine) is the one guy whose life outside of work gets some serious screen time, and it's hard to tell if he's a sympathetic bloke going through a bad patch with his wife or a selfish oaf who can't get his act together. The story's strong ending doesn't resolve anything, but it does point up the consequences of a bottom-line mentality among bosses and workers alike. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide