The majority is good - conveying the chaos and confusion of the day, but the conclusion is pure fiction that degrades the film to a clumsy exercise in finger pointing.

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2002)

On 30th January 1972 Londonderry Ivan Cooper is one of the group of volunteers that put together a march against internment and campaigning for civil rights. The march starts peacefully but breakaway youths start rioting against the military presence, throwing abuse and stones. The march continues but, under the impression that the army have been fired on, the army open fire on the marchers. At first they fire over the marchers heads, however the confusion and chaos builds and innocent civilians begin to fall. At the end of the day, 27 civilians are shot, 13 of them are killed, of all ages. This is a dramatisation of the events that contains scenes and dialogue that are fictional. The film is however based on documented evidence.
Films about Northern Ireland tend to reveal what side of the fence people are on. I'm from Northern Ireland (until a few years ago) and am a Protestant. However I'm in two minds about this film. The first hour or so is really good, the story unfolds in a series of scenes that fade in and out - this technique makes it feel a little episodic but happily doesn't go on for the whole film. The main strength of the film is that it uses handheld cameras to create a great sense of chaos, confusion and disorientation. This helps show the events in a relatively balanced light. It's not clear if shots are fired at the army or not - it's so noisy that some of the bangs could have been shot. What is clear that the military were as confused as the marchers - however the film does allow the fact that many police and soldiers had been murdered in the run up to the march and at least it shows the IRA having an armed presence and returning fire.
It also bravely shows civilians being shot - this is hard to accept but lets be honest (13 dead) this happened. It starts to show it's bias towards the end of the march when soldiers are shown shooting marchers who are wounded on the ground etc, however for the most the chaos is palatable and the soldiers are shown as on-edge and a little too ready to react (however they were in a war zone - Free Derry was not the best place for anyone not supporting the IRA to be).
The final 30 minutes of the film deals with the aftermath of the events. This is where it nails it's colours to the wall. It shows the soldiers lying to the investigating bodies and making up things that didn't happen - these scenes are clearly the dramatised ones. However if the film claims to be based on evidence then why does it totally ignore the testimony of the soldiers who claimed they opened fire on armed men? Yes they hit civilians but the starting point may have been the IRA opening fire. The way the film shows that the army are lying goes against the claim that it is based on documented evidence - if it were truly based on evidence then it would mix the testimony of marchers and soldiers. I'm sure that the soldiers are not blame free but this is a clumsy finger pointing exercise.
The problem is this - it wants to have it's cake and eat it. It wants to be taken as a documentary style film (the director is a former World in Action producer) but it also wants to include fictional scenes. It can't have it both ways - this allows the film maker to do anything he wants in the fictional scenes and back it up with the claim of documented evidence. It's a shame because the chaos and confusion of the march is so well handled and manages to spread blame evenly without finger pointing. However it blows it's credibility at the end by revealing a horrible bias.
The cast are all quite good but the standout is James Nesbit in one of the best roles I've seen him in (I'm not just saying that because he's a fellow Coleraine lad!). He starts out as a happy go lucky politician type but slows becomes a white-faced witness to the deaths on the day. His horror looks so real and echoes the viewers emotions. He helps us see that what happened was terrible, regardless of the circumstances (even if the civilians were caught in cross fire, it's still terrible) and that the horror on the day extends beyond religious boundaries.
If you compare this with Sunday that deals with the same subject, this comes across much better and with much less finger pointing, but it's still as guilty of using fictional scenes to incriminate one side. It's a shame that the film takes the evidence of marchers as gospel but ignores the claims of soldiers that they were under fire themselves. Where did the IRA go on that day? Free Derry was an IRA stronghold that was guarded by patrolled by armed men - it was a RUC and army no-go area. The claim that they had an armed presence there on the day seems perfectly reasonable to me. In fact the idea that they had no part in the day at all (apart from a few men chased off by civilians) seems ludicrous.
Overall this is quite good - the march is well handled and feels chaotic and confused, leading to the deaths. However the final half hour is pure fiction and is an exercise is clumsy finger pointing. With the enquiry still going on, why don't we wait just wait to see what the outcome of that is? Why do filmmakers feel they have carte-blanche to rewrite history, using or discarding evidence as they see fit. Worth watching for the harrowing depiction of events spinning out of control but please look into the evidence yourself - don't just assume that you can tell what is made up and which bits aren't. 6 out of 10 (but only for the excellent hand-held camera coverage of the march).