How to Cheat in the Leaving Certificate

This is a really nice piece of Irish crime filmmaking, albeit that the criminals are really school students. I once spoke with a woman on a train in Italy who was from Ireland about the Leaving Certificate and she said it was one of the most horrific experiences of her life, as this film attests.

The movie tells the story of a bunch of disillusioned students who think the system is wrong and some of them really have a point because their friend committed suicide under the pressure. They hope their efforts will appease his soul, or something. They hope to highlight what is wrong with the grading system and, as we watch the film, it becomes clear in Ireland they have it quite wrong. Screenwriters Graham Jones and Tadhg O'Higgins are to be credited for making this point - and with a lot of wit at that.

I really loved the fact that it was shot in black and white on old fashioned film by the looks of it and so is very much the gangster picture. It has a strange sense of irony running through it too. I guess it's a sense of irony or humour the creators developed while going through the Irish school system. Top marks!