’71
Director: Yann Demange
Starring: Jack O'Connell, Sam Reid, Sean Harris
99 mins; Class 15;
KRS Releasing Ltd
New British army recruit Private Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell) kicks a football around with this younger brother before transferring to Belfast on his first assignment.
It is 1971, during the early years of the so-called ‘Troubles’ that plagued Northern Ireland for 30 years and which pitted the Protestant Loyalists (who wanted to remain part of the UK and considered friendly to the British government) against the minority Catholic Nationalists (the hostiles) whose goal was to become part of the Republic of Ireland.
After a particularly violent clash with Catholic protesters in a street riot, Hook is left behind when his unit retreats. He has to make his way back to barracks alone, unarmed, in the dark, with little idea of whom he can trust as the city around him simmers.
While certainly a sobering illustration of the daily skirmishes that characterised the conflict, ’71 is also a nerve-jangling thriller.
Hook, a wet-behind-the-ears recruit who is wholly unprepared for the savagery he faces, tentatively makes his way along the danger-fraught streets of Belfast.
He has no idea who to trust and neither do we, for most of the protagonists – on both sides of the divide – engage in some dirty games of double cross.
Expertly sums up the tragedy of the death and destruction
The script by Gregory Burke also encompasses the rupture within the Nationalist movement, as the official IRA tries to stem the tide of violence perpetrated by the younger, more radical elements known as the Provisional IRA.
At times, the narrative here is so murky it’s difficult to follow who’s betraying whom.
That said, director Yann Demange makes an astonishing feature film debut showing immense maturity and confidence in his handling of the material, juggling fast and furious street battle scenes with quieter but no less tense-filled ones.
The riot that ignites the story leaves the viewer’s heart in their mouth as women whack the pavement with dustbin lids to signal the army’s arrival to the street’s residents.
Before long, the street resembles a war zone with the British platoon ridiculously unprepared and outnumbered as they face a very angry mob.
Rocks are thrown, guns are fired, bombs explode and people are shot. A particularly powerful image is that of a boy who steals a rifle and makes his way down the street with two soldiers in hot pursuit. It is a scene that does not end well and it expertly sums up the tragedy of the death and destruction that formed part of these people’s everyday lives.
Demange does not let the pace let up; in fact things become even more dangerous when night falls and the action moves to a housing estate, a Republican stronghold, where Hook finds unexpected refuge. That he is being hunted by more than one faction does not help.
All throughout, Demange is well-served by has cast, an en-semble of generally unfamiliar faces who acquit themselves exceptionally well.
Standouts are O’Connell himself, (whom we’ve just seen in Unbroken) who powerfully channels the sickening fear his young recruit faces and Sean Harris, chillingly effective as Officer Browning, the head of the undercover wing of the British Army in Northern Ireland, a man you don’t necessarily want on your side as he is more interested in the outcome than saving people’s lives.