{"id":2813,"date":"2014-10-20T16:12:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T15:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2014-10-22T12:10:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T11:10:28","slug":"71-a-review-by-beano-niblock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2813","title":{"rendered":"’71: A Review by Beano Niblock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director: Yann Demange<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writer: Gregory Burke<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Not many \u201cTroubles Films\u201d stand out in one\u2019s mind.\u00a0 At least, not for the right reasons.\u00a0 Ken Loach\u2019s Hidden Agenda..Hunger..and perhaps Alan Clarke\u2019s Contact.\u00a0 In The Name of The Father, of course.\u00a0 But you would be hard pushed to find too many more.\u00a0 A Scots screenwriter and a first time French director\u2014for a feature film at least\u2014may not be the pairing to inspire great confidence in another.\u00a0 But you would be wrong.\u00a0 What they have given us is an exciting, taut and very intelligent thriller.\u00a0 A behind enemy lines movie that will leave you thinking long after the end credits have rolled. \u00a0\u00a0You could also throw the conspiracy label in there for good measure giving it another layer-a facet that gives the film an added attraction.
\nGregory Burke\u2019s dialogue is tight..he has encapsulated many of the Inner Belfast nuances\u2014perhaps overdoes them in some parts.\u00a0 It must be remembered that Burke also wrote the Black Watch play from a few years back and it has to be said he has a great handle on the military nuances as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to be picky about home based drama\u2019s and very often we fall into the trap of singling minor misdemeanours out\u2014sometimes just for the sake of it.\u00a0 There are a couple of iffy moments in\u201971-particularly early on-but certainly not enough to cloud your judgement of the rest of this brilliant film.\u00a0 Jack O\u2019Connor rightly receives the plaudits in the main role of a young soldier-Gary Hook, on his first tour of duty in Belfast, who gets left behind by his unit in the wake of a hair raising house search which goes tragically wrong.\u00a0 The supporting cast are a mix of local and UK based actors.\u00a0 Of these Richard Dormer stands out as Eamon, a former soldier himself who now lives with his daughter in Divis Flats.\u00a0 Sean Harris plays an undercover MRF Captain with particular menace and an all encompassing disdain for everyone <\/em>around him.\u00a0 Friend and foe alike. Corey McKinley is a local teenager who makes an impact as a young Loyalist who attempts to help Hook in his short flight through the maze of West Belfast side streets and entry\u2019s.
\n\"\"<\/a>\u201971 was shot in Blackburn and Sheffield recreating an almost perfect reconstruction of the working class ghettoes of the early seventies.\u00a0 The film is particularly strong on period detail and also succeeds in recreating a genuine claustrophobic feel especially in the Divis Flats sequences.\u00a0 Demange manages quite adeptly not to take sides…criticism if any on this front, may be that he gives everyone an aura of underhandedness\u2014of low morals—of dubious motivations and of nonexistent ethics.\u00a0 Sums the situation up quite well then I hear you say.\u00a0 There is a darkness about the film that recalls those long gone black days of the early seventies..almost apocalyptic in its showing.\u00a0 The starkness of those little closed-in backstreets became a reminder of the narrow confines in which we all lived.\u00a0 Both literally and metaphorically.\u00a0 From a cinematic point of view no complaints can be levelled.\u00a0 Indeed this film ticks most boxes.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult to find any genuine downside.\u00a0 On a personal level my one minor grievance would be that all of the well worn stereotypes and clich\u00e9s from the \u201cTroubles\u201d are congested into a little more than ninety minutes but this would be a paltry criticism. \u201971 is a must see film and well worthy of all the praise being heaped upon it.<\/p>\n

Beano<\/strong><\/p>\n

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