Excellent character study of a man wrongfully imprisoned and further forced to balance finding justice with finding solace with his father.

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2009)

In the Name of the Father is an epic tale of hope and mistaken identity, a towering achievement of sorts focusing on everyday and very likable central characters as they are put through an awful emotional grinder based on true events from the 1970s and 80s. The film is spoilt only very slightly by a quite woeful theme song from Irish band U2 and the fact director Jim Sheridan cannot much direct action, forcing the very early few scenes to come across as awkward and misjudged. The rest, however, is a dedicated study of a dedicated man forced into becoming a hate figure; a fall guy of sorts, as the British government struggle to come up with answers regarding the ongoing struggles in the conflict with the Irish Republican Army.
The film is a tale of fighting for justice, a tale of independence and the duty one must go through in order to attain that independence. The road is long and the times get desperate; the characters face long stretches of prison time for things they did not do – years were incorrectly taken off their lives and the result of it all is condensed down into a two and a bit hour film that you can most certainly go out of your way to see. What is two hours of your time compared to thirty odd years of someone else's, after all?
The film is essentially told in a flashback perspective, a story that is distilled through lawyer Gareth Peirce's (Thompson) imagination as she envisages the lead character doing what he does as he narrates to her exactly what went down through a cassette recording. But we are there as well, we are back in the 1970s and 80s with the lead character as they lead a relatively upbeat and happy-go-lucky life initially before the tragedy strikes. The lead is Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis), a young Northern Irishman from Belfast who is living a life surrounded by IRA-led activity in the 1970s without ever directly being involved, but he is the sort of guy who gets caught in the cross-fire; a sort of 'wrong place, wrong time' scenario-led life that will catch up with him in horrific ways later on. When we first see Gerry, the likable rouge attitude and relatively odd choice of song by way of Jimi Hendrix sees him get chased by British troops that mistake him for an IRA sniper – the scene has a fair amount of 'fun' to it; something that is brought back down to Earth later on.
There is a sad irony and that is that it is proposed Gerry should move away from Northern Ireland following these scenes in order to get away from the troubles. Gerry agrees and takes a boat over to England with a friend named Paul Hill (Lynch), before briefly settling down in London. Initially, the film plays on Gerry being a bit of a misfit in this new setting; he mixes mostly with casual drug takers, hippies and devout, air headed female vegetarians. This unconnected and grounded realism driven segment in the film is impressive and mysterious. Having no knowledge of who these people are and what eventually happens to them will have you see the film as this wandering and series of supposedly random events in a specific time setting as Gerry wanders the streets; talks to tramps, thieves from the homes of those that accidentally drop their keys right outside the front door and looks for short stay accommodation here and there.
But what follows is a change in gear and a change in study, indeed a change that encompasses desperation; mistaken identity; the hunt for redemption and the forcing of confronting issues regarding the relationship with one's father. A bomb is detonated within the vicinity of Gerry's general area one night and he is singled out by the police for his Irish roots and the fact he has only very recently arrived in England. He is jailed, with his father, as a part of the 'Maguire Seven', before desperately trying to claim justice. As a lead character, Gerry later embodies all the innocent and necessary traits for a victim just trying to survive. The film's point of attack takes special care in painting a wavy image for Gerry, one that sees him rob apartments of money, joke about with his mates and come across as quite antagonistic at times.
Gerry and his father's, named Giuseppe (Postlethwaite), coming together in prison provide some of the more fascinating scenes in the film; a forced period of bonding during which they humblingly make peace and mend the past problems that they shared from years gone by. There is enough in the film to get caught up in, a sense of tragedy and mis-justice; a sense of pain and desperation. As far as prison set dramas go, this is one of the more impressive I've seen.