Themes of "Terrorism" and "draconian laws" resound loudly still

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2005)

This offering of a movie is very much an Irish/English story: the not-very-well known story(At least here in the States) of Gerry Conlon and the Guilford Four is mostly a tale of how a stupid,impetuous petty thief,Mr.Conlon(played with unrelenting energy from DAniel Day_lewis)is railroaded,along with his friends,his father(played with great dignity by Pete Postelthwaite) and about five others,into confessing complicity in a London pub bombing in the early-to-mid seventies. The focus is almost entirely on Gerry,as he at first accepts his fate as a criminal,languishing in a very hostile English prison, only to be slowly won over to fight for his innocence by his very upright father,who never gives up hope in winning an appeal of their conviction. Emma Thompson's part as the "Four"'s lawyer is not minor,but she really only comes into play more than halfway though the film.Still,she's as impassioned and stirring as ever.
I use the title line of my review to say that even though the film's subject is very universal,it's themes are EERILY applicable to our war on terror in the USA. I feel like there's more than a little of this "at all costs" approach to finding terror suspects.
Politics aside,this was quite a strong movie,co-written by Terry George("Hotel Rwanda",another very strong film!) and directed by Jim Sheridan("My Left Foot"). I feel like,while this film may have special appeal to Irish Catholics anywhere(which I'm not quite one meself),I think it will work for the Irish(or non)in anyone.