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'71 review
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A good movie

To be honest, I can’t remember why I wanted to check this movie in the first place. I guess it seemed to have a decent reputation so I thought I might as well check it out. Anyway, it turned out to be a gritty thriller with an interesting historical background. Basically, what you get to see is the main character going from one spot to another, trying to make it through the night, and not much else to be honest.  Concerning Jack O'Connell, he was not bad and it was a nice touch to see him with his little brother who was there obviously to explain why this guy would choose to join the army but, eventually, his character was actually barely developed. However, they did put a lot of focus on the historical background which felt so genuine and convincing that it eventually did manage to compensate the generic aspect of the plot. Basically, back then, Belfast was pretty much a war zone. The weird thing for an outsider, like the main character or the viewers, was that all these houses look the same so, at some point, without noticing it, the main character had crossed some invisible border and was actually on the other side. Not only everything looked the same but even the people felt really similar which might explain why they would be constantly hammering about the ‘bloody Catholics’ and the ‘f*cking Protestants’ apparently mostly to convince themselves that they are nothing alike. This movie also argued, in my opinion, that the British government actually never really cared about this conflict and would rather have both sides, equally fanatic, killing each other. It would explain why they would send a rather small number of soldiers with no field experience in such a volatile and dangerous environment instead of sending their best soldiers to handle this situation. However, I don’t think it was really a great idea to focus on the Military Reaction Force and, as a result, turn them into the ‘bad guys’ when, in fact, it was another tragic conflict involving fanatic religious beliefs (or maybe it is just an excuse?) with no specific side to really blame. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe nothing really ground-breaking, it was still a really solid thriller and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 



7/10
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Added by johanlefourbe
3 years ago on 19 May 2020 11:50

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kathy