Very realistic

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2004)

A true work of cinema verite. The movie draws you into it. There came a point, near the end, when the Ivan Cooper character is walking around the makeshift morgue, and he's seeing the family members of the dead wailing and crying, that it actually seems like you are a part of the film. It's amazing. You become, not just an observer, but almost an emotional participant. The only other sensation, in a movie, that I've had like that is in "Private Ryan" when Tom Cruise is dying near the "alamo", and he looks over and sees that the Tom Sizemore character is dead.
The only disappointing thing about the film was, not knowing a whole lot of the chronolgy of the period, that I thought the Gerry character was going to be developed as Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, who was just out of prison at that time this took place, just like the character in the film. He would have also been about the same age as the character. It turns out that he dies in the movie so that can't be true, but it was probably a thought that the writer had in developing the part. Watch it, it's great, but make sure you sit through it without interruption so you get the full effect of the true power of the film.