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DVD ’71
 Run time: 100 min Rating: 7.6 Genres: Action | Drama | War Director: Yann Demange Writers: Gregory Burke Stars: Jack O’Connell, Sean Harris, Sam Reid |
| Storyline A young and disoriented British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a riot on the deadly streets of Belfast in 1971. |
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| Plot Keywords: british soldier, british army, belfast northern ireland, fire, firearm | |
| Details: Country: UK Release Date: 17 October 2014 (UK) |
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I saw this film at the Berlinale film festival 2014, where it was part of the official competition. A lot of action plus a lot of yelling and F-words, but that is to be expected given the circumstances. A welcome surprise was that the plot was not confined to a lone soldier lost in a strange and hostile city (as suggested by the synopsis), but luckily went a few steps further by bringing up the topic of good versus bad and who to trust if someone is offering to help. You never knew which side someone is on, and whether there is no hidden agenda, in spite of showing interest in your well being and offering to help you out of a situation you can impossibly cope with on your own devices.
An important additional plot element was that the solider saw something that could have exposed a double agent. From that moment on he was endangered by several parties, some of them prepared to eliminate him in order to prevent exposure of their secrets. That extra bonus made this movie worth while, and provided for sufficient material to fill the 100 minutes running time. Being severed from his patrol unit, and his struggle all night long to get back to them, would on itself not have been enough. But the second half brought enough additional elements to make up a wonderful film, regardless of the underlying war-zone struggles in Belfast that we don't understand anymore nowadays. Nevertheless, such issues are of all times. We see ample similar civil wars elsewhere, also with an undercurrent of religious differences.
In the final scenes we see an internal inquest into what happened, but not all people tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I failed to get a grip on this finale, and could not understand which a**es were exactly covered up by who. It did not ruin my viewing experience, however. This film is not about Action alone, but also about the missing "good" and "bad" delineations inherent to civil war situations. Covering up stupid mistakes and shifting the blame is something of all times, as are double agents working for both sides.