Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2006)

Bloody Sunday is a gritty and emotionally intense documentary style drama about an Irish civil rights protest march in that ended in a violent massacre when British troops opened fire on the crowd of protesters on January 30, 1972 in Darry, Northern Ireland. The film was written and directed by British filmmaker Paul Greengrass with a steady hand and an unflinching eye for human emotion much like this year's United 93. Greengrass is quickly becoming one of my favorite filmmakers with his passionate and intimate look at dramatic history.
The film starts off the night before the protest with Civil Rights leader Ivan Cooper (played well by James Nesbitt) announcing to the press that they will march peacefully the next day and that they will continue to march for Civil Rights until they get what they want. From then on the film shows Cooper rallying the town's people together, passing out pamphlets for their peaceful march, and we see British troops setting up roadblocks and barricades. The march gets going and as it makes it way through the town all seems to be going according to plan, but things start to unravel when some of the town's more rebellious youth start to fear the troop's presence and start to throw bricks. The British try hitting them with a water cannon, but the situation escalates into a shooting frenzy as the troops think someone in the crowd starts to fire at them. The troops move in quickly and suddenly laying down fire shooting retreating protesters left and right without pause or mercy. These scenes of mass hysteria and panic are both saddening and tragic.
At the end of Bloody Sunday thirteen protesters are dead and many of the young male surviving protesters joined the IRA in retaliation of the British government's actions, only causing the effectiveness of the Civil Rights movement's cause to become tragically lost. The film does a very effective job of recreating history in a convincing and gripping way. You don't have to really know anything about the Historical aspect of the film to really understand the film, but it certainly doesn't hurt. This is a powerfully effective film with a fiery tension and sad conclusion. If you liked United 93, Munich or Black Hawk Down I think you might enjoy Bloody Sunday. And as it should, the film ends with a live performance of U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday".