Limited contents urgently conveyed.

Rating: 2/10 (30 November 2002)

I agree with most of the points made here about Bloody Sunday by people who liked it, but these points are my main reason for not liking it. The film is made for TV and adopts what Janyeap quite rightly a "faux documentary" format. That is, the color is dull and cold, and the contrast high. Cuts are frequent, and so are camera movements. Everything is framed close. You need an Irish ear to get all the dialogue. (No, the shots aren't jerky, except on purpose to underline "high" moments.) All that could be accepted, if it did not also impose the point of view of on-the-spot news shooting. There is no background at all, only the simplest dynamics, linear development and no real center, just disorder, urgency, emotion.
If you come into the film with the belief that one unit of the Royal British Army went on a nice Sunday duck shoot at a peaceful march, and got thirteen Catholics dead, and good reports all around due to the efficient propaganda system in place (and now a fine life in retirement), well, you will learn practically nothing from the film - only perhaps the point, made near the end, that this was the IRA's greatest battle, killing the civil rights movement and bringing hundreds of recruits. Perhaps it was, if you take "battle" to indicate a rate of death per hour.
If you don't agree with the preamble in the last paragraph, then, as several postings here show, the film will not convince you one wit. The best that can be said about it is that it's a nice memorial intended for those who agree with the preamble, quite well made in its way. Still, whether you want to sit through a 107-minute memorial depends on your feelings for TV news shoots.