'71

K-9

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Enjoyable and atmospheric thriller. The moody cinematography and soundtrack particularly maintain the momentum for the most part. Reminded me of a Belfast take on The Raid quite a bit :pac:

I did feel the film was a bit top-heavy in terms of characters, which dulled the impact of the finale quite a bit when there were too many subplots to wrap up. And would have loved the film to end

on the shot of O'Connell walking down the corridor after the meeting with his superiors - given how long the shot lasted, it genuinely seemed like there was a about to be a cut to black. The proceeding epilogue scenes IMO felt redundant - over-emphasising the character's destination and failing to find a final shot as visually potent and efficient as the corridor one.

It was a bit laborious but the boy was an integral part of the humane side of the soldier. I don't think it ever said if he was his son/brother/nephew?

vidor wrote: »

Same. Wish it had just stuck with the group of newbies trying to make sense of it all when they arrive there instead of going where it went. Didn't buy in to some of the performances (Killian Scott, for example), cinematography irked me a little at times, too contrived in parts (

conveniently gets picked up by some ex-medic

) and the last ten minutes was littered with cliches.

The most telling line in the film is when he is asked why Derby and Nottingham don't get on, I though he'd say football, but "I don't know" showed the innocence, if he didn't know that how was he to understand N.I.! Agrees on Scott, he was fine, that was about it. The young Loyalist lad was well portrayed, could have been either side.

Overall I though they handled the different sides very well, showed the humane sides and the truth of what a dirty war is, all 3 sides don't really come out of it well. It's about as balanced a movie as you could get on that period.

Richard Dormer was very good as the medic/father.

Mickeroo

Saw this during the week and thought it was very good. The scene where

he stabs the lad in the block of flats

has really stayed with me since.

I thought it was a good move having the main protagonist being largely ignorant of what exactly was going on there at the time.

cloud493

Think I assumed

the young boy was Hooks brother. The age difference anyway

Fysh

I finally got round to seeing this last night, and I'm really glad I did. O'Connell is 2 for 2 in my book; I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for any future projects of his.

As far as the film itself goes, I thought it was excellent. I liked that by keeping the focus on the perspective of a bunch of inexperienced soldiers we didn't get some heavy-handed moralising about the origin of the Troubles or any kind of moral righteousness; instead we got to see the situation on the ground where both sides have a mixture of folks who want to kill the other side and folks who want to help people and co-exist. In particular, I was delighted that

the exchange where Derbyshire and Nottingham's rivalry/emnity is mentioned is used to suggest Hook's naiveté and lack of a wider/deeper historical context in which to understand the Troubles, rather than to introduce some almost-certainly-clunky dialogue where the daughter Explains The Troubles To Him.

Between that and

the way the Lieutenant is shown to be way out of his depth and lacking any kind of support in terms of either a proper understanding of the situation or meaningful support from the RUC

, I felt that the script did a good job of avoiding taking sides.

The young fella was a revelation - not just for the humour that he introduced to the role but also for a very strong performance.

(After Hook says he doesn't know if he's Catholic or Protestant) "You don't know?! Now I've f*ckin' heard it all!"

connollys

Fysh wrote: »

. O'Connell is 2 for 2 in my book:D

What other film are you talking about, Starred Up I assume? He has been knocking around for a long time and has been putting in consistently good performances all along. He was excellent in Eden Lake I thought and good in Harry Brown too. Spotted him in the United movie about the Munich disaster too. Just avoid the 300 sequel, nobody should be judged by that.

Fysh

connollys wrote: »

What other film are you talking about, Starred Up I assume? He has been knocking around for a long time and has been putting in consistently good performances all along. He was excellent in Eden Lake I thought and good in Harry Brown too. Spotted him in the United movie about the Munich disaster too. Just avoid the 300 sequel, nobody should be judged by that.

Yeah, Starred Up was the other one I was thinking of, didn't realise he'd done more film roles. I remember seeing him in Skins, but by that point I thought the writing had deteriorated quite badly so I didn't stick around with it.

MakeEmLaugh

Watched this last night. Was a pretty solid thriller. Far better than recent 'Troubles' films such as Shadow Dancer and Fifty Dead Men Walking.

Hardly an all-time classic, but it got across the grisliness of a pub-bombing in a more effective way than many other films which attempted such a feat. Seeing a young boy (albeit one spurting sectarian anti-Catholic hatred) have this arms blown off, leaving a charred corpse, was quite disturbing.

I also liked the brief coda with Hook (O'Connell) and his brother. The film avoided the usual trope of ending with our hero on the cusp of leaving whatever troubled situation he found himself in. Shame about the clichéd 'throwing away the badge' (or in this case, dog tags) moment.

Perhaps the film '71 was closest to was The Raid.

OldeCinemaSoz

ITV's 1982 "HARRYS GAME" is a far better take on THE NORTHERN IRELAND ANGLE.

Possibly the best thing THE BRITS had done in years.

DoYouEvenLift

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Watched this last night. Was a pretty solid thriller. Far better than recent 'Troubles' films such as Shadow Dancer and Fifty Dead Men Walking.

Hardly an all-time classic, but it got across the grisliness of a pub-bombing in a more effective way than many other films which attempted such a feat. Seeing a young boy (albeit one spurting sectarian anti-Catholic hatred) have this arms blown off, leaving a charred corpse, was quite disturbing.

I also liked the brief coda with Hook (O'Connell) and his brother. The film avoided the usual trope of ending with our hero on the cusp of leaving whatever troubled situation he found himself in. Shame about the clichéd 'throwing away the badge' (or in this case, dog tags) moment.

Perhaps the film '71 was closest to was The Raid.

Please don't insult The Raid, one of the best modern action movies, by comparing this to it.


This movie wasn't terrible, but I'll never watch it again.

Son0vagun

Watched it last night. It was ok, not the masterpiece everyone is making it out to be. O'Connell didn't really have much to do in it. There was too much convenient pausing by main charactors at crucial plot points, so much so it took me out of the drama.

And it really bugged me that around every street corner was another burning car or bus! I know it was bad back then, but not that bad!

DoYouEvenLift

Son0vagun wrote: »

Watched it last night. It was ok, not the masterpiece everyone is making it out to be. O'Connell didn't really have much to do in it. There was too much convenient pausing by main charactors at crucial plot points, so much so it took me out of the drama.

And it really bugged me that around every street corner was another burning car or bus! I know it was bad back then, but not that bad!

He needs to improve his facial expressions. A few times when it was clear he was/should have been trying to appear shocked and scared he had more of a smirk on his face.

Son0vagun

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

He needs to improve his facial expressions. A few times when it was clear he was/should have been trying to appear shocked and scared he had more of a smirk on his face.

Yes there was one stage where his head was down, his eyes looked up, and a slight smirk appeared, and I thought this is it, he's about to go all Jackie Chan on them.

Zombienosh

Watched this the weekend, brilliant film, had me on the edge of me seat for the duration. Really enjoying Jack O'Connells roles so far, just watched starred up recently too.

Looper007

connollys wrote: »

What other film are you talking about, Starred Up I assume? He has been knocking around for a long time and has been putting in consistently good performances all along. He was excellent in Eden Lake I thought and good in Harry Brown too. Spotted him in the United movie about the Munich disaster too. Just avoid the 300 sequel, nobody should be judged by that.

He's also in Shane Meadow's This is England (He's in the gang, the young lad who is kicked out of the car and then headbutted by Stephen Graham), he doesn't reappear in the TV show though.

I thought he was best thing in Unbroken.

BlatentCheek

I thought this film was great. Solid performances and period detail.
You could see that they did a excellent job on a small enough budget - the riot scene was particularly good.

Top class writing too - followed the rule "Show, don't tell" for exposition perfectly.

I loved how the film emphasised how divisive conflict is. The Catholic-Protestant divide is only the start. You see the British Army and RUC not working in unison; the MRF working at cross-purposes to the Paras; The IRA splitting and betraying each other; even the civilian father-daughter split with potentially fatal consequences for each other.

DavidRamsay99

The movie would have been far better if it focused on the undercover British Army hardcases.

cloud493

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

The movie would have been far better if it focused on the undercover British Army hardcases.

What makes you think that? I think it'd be worse.

DavidRamsay99

cloud493 wrote: »

What makes you think that? I think it'd be worse.

The character of the soldier wasn't particularly interesting.

He only existed as an innocent who takes us through the republican and loyalist areas.

The undercover British guys and their nefarious goings on was the core of the film.

cloud493

But then the film would be coming down on one side or the other, intentionally or unintentionally. Hook is a good character cos he has no particular bias towards either side, and we see things as he see's things pretty much. Whereas the undercover guys had a bias, seeing as they were anti IRA/anti irish in general kinda.

DavidRamsay99

cloud493 wrote: »

But then the film would be coming down on one side or the other, intentionally or unintentionally. Hook is a good character cos he has no particular bias towards either side, and we see things as he see's things pretty much. Whereas the undercover guys had a bias, seeing as they were anti IRA/anti irish in general kinda.

If they told the story from their perspective it would have been more fun though.

The cloak and dagger and the double and triple and quadruple crosses were great.

cloud493

Not really, would have been more dull.

I mean the fact theres only short gun fight in the whole film makes said gun fight carry more weight than anything I've seen in say, transformers, american sniper, etc.

DavidRamsay99

cloud493 wrote: »

Not really, would have been more dull.

I mean the fact theres only short gun fight in the whole film makes said gun fight carry more weight than anything I've seen in say, transformers, american sniper, etc.

If the central character was a hard cynical burnt out undercover operator who has seen it all, is disgusted by what he has to do but still gets a buzz from the danger it would have been far more fun.

There could have been more plot lines about corruption and double dealing at the highest level of politics and the military and the paramilitaries filtering down to street level.

A kind of Belfast version of Chinatown in other words.

cloud493

But it already does that. It just doesn't blare it in the viewers face.

DavidRamsay99

cloud493 wrote: »

But it already does that. It just doesn't blare it in the viewers face.

I like the movie and what it tries to do but I didn't like the "happy" ending.

It didn't ring true for me.

County rebel

Watched it last night on film4 i thought it was excellent a couple of love hate actors in it was only waiting for nidge to turn up.