outstanding cinema

Rating: Null/10 (26 July 2002)

This is a terrific movie and the acting is just outstanding. Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the finest actors in the world and he never makes a misstep in a role. He had just come off of making "The Last of Mohicans" and when "In the Name of the Father" was cast he suggested Pete Postlethwaite for the rold of Guiseppe Conlan. Postlethwaite had a very small role in "Mohicans" but he he got an Oscar nomination for "Father" and his career took off. No doubt he sends Day-Lewis a Christmas gift every year (if he doesn't, he should!).
The movie has two parallel stories---the Conlans' fight to clear their names and the contentious relationship between the father and son. I thought that the most powerful scene in the movie was when Guiseppe and Gerry are put into a cell together for the first time. Gerry, who's already been severely tortured, is scared out of his wits and begins railing against his father, letting all of his resentments towards his father boil out. Guiseppe stoically takes the verbal abuse until Gerry breaks down and falls into his father's arms. In the end he is a frightened child, clinging to his father for protection. Just a tremendous acting job by both men.

An interesting trivia aside, Gerry's buddy in the movie, Paul Hill, later married one of Bobby Kennedy's daughters. When he was tortured to confess he not only confessed to the Guilford bombing but to killing a Belfast police officer. Of course he was exonerated of the bombing but amazingly the British gov't fought to make the police officer murder charge stick, claiming apparently that even though Hill was tortured to confess falsely to the bombing, that his tortured confession to the other murder was acceptable to convict him. The higher court finally threw out the conviction and Hill was finally free.
"In the Name of the Father" is a movie that will make you angry. And it will also move you as a tremendous portrayal of a relationship between father and son.