Peterloo

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Peterloo: Trailer 1

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Peterloo: Teaser Trailer 1

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Cast

Rory Kinnear
as Henry Hunt

Maxine Peake
as Nellie

Tim McInnerny
as Prince Regent

David Bamber

Nico Mirallegro
as John Bagguley

Neil Bell
as Samuel Bamford

Philip Jackson
as John Knight

Vincent Franklin
as Magistrate Rev Etlhelson

Karl Johnson
as Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary

Pearce Quigley
as Joshua

David Moorst
as Joseph

Rachel Finnegan
as Mary

Tom Meredith
as Robert

Simona Bitmaté
as Esther

Robert Wilfort
as Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister

Sam Troughton
as Mr. Hobhouse

Roger Sloman
as Mr. Grout

Kenneth Hadley
as Mr. Golightly

Tom Edwards
as Kane-Mr. Cobb

Lizzy McInnerny
as Mrs. Moss

Alastair Mackenzie
as General Sir John Byng

Lisa Millett
as Jemima Bamford

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Critic Reviews for Peterloo

Audience Reviews for Peterloo

• May 05, 2019

  Mike Leigh is a famed writer/director who often writes from a working class perspective, so it's no surprise he would go back to a notable 1819 British massacre where local ruling magistrates and abusive militia mowed down and killed a dozen citizens that had gathered in Manchester to rally for worker rights and voting representation. I was ignorant to the injustice in history but went in suspecting a horrible confrontation by the end. When the tragedy does strike, it's searing and upsetting and moving. The problem is that it takes forever to get to the moment that we've been waiting for and that finally provides meaning for the movie. Peterloo is far too long at two and a half hours and it takes a solid two of those hours just to finally march our characters into the awaiting tragedy of its title. Leigh paints a realistic mosaic of the many working class and middle-class people of the time, families struggling for work, men processing PTSD from the recent Napoleonic wars, political leaders articulating the pathways for reform measures, and Leigh and his production team are very good at recreating the industrial Manchester reality with care and precision. Leigh's ear for dialogue is almost documentarian. However, for those two hours, Peterloo amounts to a slice of life of relatively boring people living boring lives until the big incident that makes them notable, namely that they were abused and died horribly. It becomes a waiting game where you get anxious for the tragedy to arrive. Another choice that harms the film's impact is how incredibly over-the-top the villains are written and performed; these are mustache-twirling caricatures of greedy, venal business men, factory owners, and power brokers and their performances are so slimy that they feel like they transported from the most black-and-white of fantasy tropes. It feels like these people would be relaxing by putting their feet up over a pile of child corpses. It gets to be downright campy how the villains are portrayed. Peterloo is ultimately an enraging movie that is far too boring for far too long to feel much more than a sense of relief when it's over. Nate's Grade: C+
  Nate Z Super Reviewer

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