‘’71
Roadside Attractions
Reviewed by Harvey Karten for Shockya
Grade: B+
Director: Yann Demange
Screenwriter: Gregory Burke
Cast: Jack O’Connell, Lewis Paul Anderson, Richard Dormer, Sean Harris, Martin McCann, Charles Q. Murphy
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 2/18/14
Opens: February 27, 2015
Telling teenagers today even in Northern Ireland about The Troubles will result in a blank stare. Happily enough, a peace was signed between the Irish Republican Army and Britain after talks with then Prime Minister Tony Blair. The IRA finally disarmed in 2001 though some sporadic fighting might still exist. Still Catholics and Protestants can walk outside in Belfast and Londonderry without fear of being killed, though Northern Ireland did not succeed in pushing Britain out and joining with the Republic of Ireland. The Catholics did win an agreement to share power in their legislature, which has some autonomy today.
Looking at the quiet that has descended in Belfast, you’ve got to wonder how the rage between the Irish Republican Army, representing the Catholics, and the Unionists, under Britain, ever subsided. No recent movie about The Troubles gives the audience the emotions, the pure hatred between the two forces, with the impact of “’71,” the credit going not only to Jack O’Connell, known to us mostly for his role as the rebellious prisoners in “Starred Up” (never mind that the dialogue was largely indecipherable), but also to director Yann Demanage for setting up realistic seeming fight scenes, a series of breathless chases, and a sense of neighborhood that Demange found not in present day Belfast but in the English town of Sheffield.
The streets inhabited by the Catholic population look typically outlying-city British, a series of row houses that are comfortable enough and a neighborhood that tourists might find “colorful.” In 1971, during the height of the pitched battles between draftees in the British Army and groups of Catholics, we are led to understand that while many British soldiers did not want to be fighting there, “oppressing” the Catholics, and on the Catholic side were young radicals called provisionals that wanted no peace and nothing less than pitching the Brits out versus the older moderates who believed in negotiations. As scripted with appropriate nuances by Gregory Burke, Catholics were actually killing Catholics, the young against the older, and one Catholic couple even risked their lives by caring for a wounded British soldier.
Anchoring the show, Jack O’Connell stars in the role of Gary Hook, a young draftee sent with a small British force to Belfast to stabilize the area where the unit are met with large rocks from the hostile populace and one murder of a soldier by an IRA resident who stole a gun. The local populace meet the soldiers not only with rocks but with loud arguments, not unlike the ones faced by our own forces during the Vietnam War who would chant, “How many kids did you kill today?” One woman spits at a soldier while others walk boldly up to them with enraged faces knowing that the soldiers are not authorized to shoot.
When Gary Hook accidentally becomes separated from his unit, he is forced to fend for himself in this story, all of which takes place within a single night. He is hunted as would a fox outrunning a band of harrier dogs, pursued especially by a group of young radicals like James Quinn (Killian Scott) and Sean (Barry Keoghan)—who in turn are considered troublemakers by the older Boyle (David Wilmot) who fears repercussions from a large British force if casualties result. Wounded and half dead, Gary stumbles into the home of a Catholic couple, the owner being a former medic who spent twenty years in the armed forces and a man who tells him that “the army does not care about you: you are treated like a piece of meat.” He is kind enough to tend to the soldier’s wounds, and is later threatened with death by the young provisionals, who continue their pursuit of the enemy unmolested by others in the poor man’s unit.
The movie brims with life, the battles look spot-on authentic, and a sense of history is revived in the audience just as current battles with ISIS and Al Queda have driven the decades of IRA-British hostility to the inactive files.
Rated R. 99 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – A-
Acting – B+
Technical – A-
Overall – B+
