The Navigators

Synopsis: In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords. A cheery camaraderie is soon replaced by uncertainty and turmoil when their depot manager fills them in on the details of the new arrangement. Privatization means that the customer now comes first, something that is instilled into the men in new training sessions. But there are inconsistencies and shortsightedness to the new ways. Men used to working together now find themselves belonging to different, competing companies. Some even have to tender for their old jobs. Others decide to take the redundancy packages offered by the firm. As always, corners are cut in the interest of lowering costs, leading to a series of misadventures.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director(s): Ken Loach
Production: First Look Pictures
  3 wins & 3 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.0
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
R
Year:
2001
96 min
Website
169 Views


I've... I've done that bit.

(Chatter)

- Got your end?

- No. A bit more.

- Got your end?

- No. Right, got it now.

- Here, John, just pull this .

- Andy, there's only one coming through.

Hang on. Right.

It's stuck on summat.

Well, I need another two of them.

(Chatter)

(Horn)

One on the up, lads .

Come on, look sharp .

Mick, off the track. Come on.

John, shift yourself.

Mick, s pade.

Oh, bollocks !

Mick!

- (Train horn)

- Mick, leave it.

- Mick! Leave it!

- (Shouting)

Come on, get off the bloody thing!

(Yawns )

(Grunts )

Come on, Webby, get up .

There you go, Paul,

I've put you in a piece of lemon cake.

Oh, thanks, Tracy.

- Have I got some?

- You don't like it.

Yeah, I do.

See you later.

- See you, pal.

- Bye.

(Baby cries )

Come on.

Cheers .

What's all this, then?

That's you.

We're railwaymen, us .

That's what you're gonna be called from now on.

- What, all of us ?

- All of us, aye.

When's that come in?

Well, that's what we're gonna be called now.

(Chatter)

Morning, lads .

Er, you'll be pleased to know

you don't have to go out straightaway.

- (Chatter continues )

- Oi! Oi!

Excuse me,

I've got something important to tell you here.

There's a briefing I'm gonna tell you about.

Because, er, it's about your new company.

East Midlands lnfrastructure. All right?

I've got a briefing about it here.

So, if you just listen carefully,...

er, don't interrupt.

You know, just for once, try and...

- Morning.

- Oh, aye, where've you been?

Toilet.

Toilet, oh. You're not late, are you?

- No.

- No, been here ages .

- Have you clocked on?

- Yeah.

All right. Well, sit down and listen. All right?

(She murmurs )

Thought it were girls

who were s'posed to go to toilet together.

- He won't wake up in the morning.

- I was knackered. Your settee's crap .

- She'll not have him. Too much sense.

- Thank you, Fiona.

Right, now. Hang on, hang on. Listen, lads .

Now then, if there's anyone here

not actually based at this depot,

because one or two of you lads are on loan

from Woodburn depot, aren't you?

So, hands up all those

who are on loan from Woodburn.

OK, I'm sorry, lads ,

but this information is not for you, OK?

So I must ask you to go outside, all right?

- What's he talking about?

- (Laughter)

What are you laughing at?

What is it? Why?

Why have they got to go outside?

Why? Because they're a different company now

and I don't want them s pying on us...

- (Laughter)

- ..and pinching our jobs .

Who d'you think we are, James Bond?

Oi. Oi! Oi! Oi! What the hell are you laughing at?

Come on. Keep it down.

- (Muttering)

- Come on, lads .

What, they've got to go?

- Yeah.

- (Chatter)

This is... This is daft, this .

- Listen, British Rail is gone now.

- I'll tell you what he says, lads .

- It's not...

- It's daft, this .

Listen, hang on. It's not like that

any more, Gerry. British Rail's gone.

Woodburn depot is now Northern lnfrastructure

and they're gonna be competing with us .

All right? Er,...

A... And look, it's all in this briefing.

- All right? Have they gone? Right. Fine.

- They've left door open, they might hear us .

Hey! Hey, hey, hey, come on.

Listen, you're not rail workers any more.

Er, you're now East Midlands lnfrastructure.

For now, anyway.

Er, you don't work for British Rail and we've got

to win contracts from the, er, Railtrack company.

Er, and we've got a managing director

to... to win the work for us, all right?

- Who's he, then?

- Because now, in the future, just...

- Who is he?

- Just... All right, all right, listen.

Just doing the job is not gonna be good enough

in the future. Right?

You've gotta do it well, if we're gonna succeed.

And we've gotta advertise our skills

and we've got to have a mission statement.

- What's a mission statement?

- Mission lmpossible.

- (Some laughter)

- Missionary position.

- (Laughter)

- All right, all right, keep the banter down, lads .

Let's keep it serious. This is important stuff

you've gotta... you've gotta listen to here.

Look, a mission statement

is where we say what we're gonna do...

Er, and then we have to do it.

(Laughter)

- I'm off to work.

- (Laughter)

- All right.

- I'm going for a sh*t.

- (Laughter)

- All right! Come on!

Listen! I've got

bloody more important things to do

than bloody go on talking to you lads like this .

- I'm going for a sh*t.

- All right, now come on.

That's the way things are gonna be done

in future, right?

Now listen. Because to succeed

in the marketplace,

we've gotta sell our wares p... carefully.

- And we've gotta...

- (Laughter)

We've got to look after the customer

if we're gonna keep 'em.

All right? And we've got to have safety

written into the contract.

Er, because if we don't work safely,

well, we don't work at all. All right?

- We do work safely.

- And, er...

- Eh?

- We always work safely.

Well, you try, but it's not as safe

as when I used to do the job, I'll tell you that.

(Jeering and laughter)

- Ta(!) That's right on...

- You might bloody scoff, but it's bloody true.

Some of the old lads, I wish they were still here.

Show you bloody lads a thing or two, I'll tell you.

Old Len knows what I'm talking about.

He was one of the lads .

Old Len ha'n't... 'Ere, Old Len ha'n't

a bloody clue what you're talking about.

(Laughter)

Oh, now listen, hang on.

Now this really is important.

All right. We've had a bit of fun, lads ,

but now come on, get serious now.

Look, deaths have got to be kept

to an acceptable level.

(Laughter)

Oi! Hang on! Shut up. Shut up .

- What's an acceptable level?

- Er,... two a year.

- But nobody's been killed for past 1 8 month.

- (Laughter)

- Any volunteers ?

- (Laughter)

- That's daft.

- If you're third one, you're sacked.

Look, I'm just bloody telling you

what it says here, right?

Listen. Now then, the final thing is...

there's a letter here for each of you.

I want you to read it carefully.

- What's it for, that, then?

- It's about redundancy. If...

- You're going to make it compulsory.

- No, it's not compulsory.

- It... It's up to you whether you accept it.

- Have you got one, an' all?

Gonna buy us off, then. Gonna buy us off.

- That's it. Sell us down the river again.

- Aye.

Are we all getting one of these?

Should do, aye. There's one for each of you.

(Muttering)

Are you getting one?

- Michael.

- I don't need one, lad.

- Why, has he got sack?

- John.

- Is this what they call f***ing hand-outs ?

- Eh?

(Chatter)

- Paul.

- I ain't been here long enough to cop for that.

Come on then, let's be having you!

- Come on, lads .

- We can't do owwt in this, Len. It's wet.

- Easy on them brakes, mate.

- It's raining on me, as well.

Come on. Let's get for'ard

and have a look at job. Come on!

He's a bloody nutcase.

Oh, for Christ's sake!

- Morning, ganger, what's job?

- Bloody ballast tamper's packed up again.

- Tamper's broken down?

- Yeah, so it seems .

- What are you having to do? Lay it all by hand?

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Rob Dawber

Robert "Rob" Dawber (8 January 1956 – 20 February 2001) was a British railwayman turned writer whose script for the film The Navigators was commissioned by director Ken Loach and shot in Sheffield, where Dawber lived. He was a long-standing member of the Trotskyist group the Alliance for Workers' Liberty. more…

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