Original Sin

Rating: 6/10 (4 December 2007)

Daniel Day-Lewis is Gerry Conlon, a Belfast Catholic. He's a young guy who leads a reckless life, throwing rocks gleefully at British armored cars, stealing from a prostitute's apartment. But things are getting rough in Belfast. A resolution has just been passed that allows for the arrest and retention of suspected terrorists for seven days without charge. (Seven days, nothing. How about infinity? Betrayed by neighboring and competitive falafel-stand owner, the despicable and damned-forever Shaymala, who is forever after me. May her tribe be cursed. Signed: Abdul Abulbul Amir, Guantanamo.) Well, Day-Lewis ships over to London where he leads a reckless, heedless, drug- and booze-besotted, frolicsome, life of hippiedom in a shoddy commune of like-minded dope-smoking friends. We don't believe in eating animals. Only love.
The next thing he knows, he's in the slams with his father. He's been convicted of setting off a bomb in a pub, and his Da of running a safe house.
The scene in which the explosion occurs is very well done. Here is the happy, fur-bedecked Day-Lewis in the equivalent of Central Park or Golden Gate Park, having his usual unthinking good time, when there comes to the gay group a distant but loud THUMP. They rise and look grimly in the direction of the sound. "Sounds like Belfast," says one of them.
It would have been easy to make the Crown the heavy and the poor IRA folk the awesome victims, but that's not what this is about. It's about the relationship between Day-Lewis, a delinquent, and his father, Pete Postelthwaite, who committed sins a long time ago.
Inmates have an interesting subculture. And it's different, evidently, from one country to another. These inmates are almost benign compared to Americans. American inmates have ritual verbalisms that excuse their acts -- murder or whatever. "It wasn't personal." (Probably taken from "The Godfather.") Or, "He had no business being there." American cops have the same convention: "It was just a natural act," said when a police officer shoots or beats the crap out of a bystander. No problem. If one inmate has a fit and falls down an iron staircase, another inmate who witnesses it might -- might -- call the center and say, "Somebody just fell down," without helping. And the slams themselves are better kept up in Britain than in all but the newest slams in America.
The direction is zippy without being maddening, and the acting superb. It's well worth seeing.