NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.
It's a personal, affecting and pleasingly unusual film, a little too long perhaps and unwieldy in its final stages, but never less than shocking, powerful and utterly relevant.
– Dave Calhoun,
Time Out,
18 Jan 2011
fresh:
First-timer McCarron is never less than convincing as a baby-faced brute who can elicit a stranger's sympathy as easily as he can inflict devastating comeuppance.
– Sheri Linden,
Los Angeles Times,
12 May 2011
fresh:
A stringent street psychodrama in which brutality is an infection and every male is a carrier.
– Jeannette Catsoulis,
NPR,
13 May 2011
fresh:
The casting is good throughout, but McCarron makes the movie.