Loach lays a wooden egg

Rating: 3/10 (27 August 2006)

With a talented cast, gorgeous scenery and cinematography, and a sure-fire conflict story based on recent history, one would think this film would be a sure-fire smash hit....especially if one goes by other IMDb reviews. Maybe I just watched an alternative-universe version, or my chair angle was wrong, but what I saw did not nearly do justice to a story deserving of being told, and told well. It missed, not by an inch, more by a mile, Padraic.
Perhaps Ken Loach is trying to portray a tight-lipped, understated desperation among his characters, but all I got was a lot of screaming, shooting, and screen hostility, like a college production. I never really saw the tension. Sure, there's the senseless beating death in the beginning that catalyzes the village boys to take up arms....but it's impersonal, boorish, and over way too quick, and never gets near the evil impersonality of, say, Ralph Fiennes in Schindler. And the sentiment in Southern Ireland was exactly akin, that the British saw them as inferior, unruly savages to be treated as such. The historical occupation says at least as much about the British as it does the Irish. And of course, English viewers will be naturally uncomfortable, because what they remember most is the brutal IRA bombings of recent history.
We all(in America) know of the dogged determinism of Winston Churchill rallying England against the Germans, but we are never told the sobering fact that Churchill and Downing Street and the British Crown were so hated by the Irish that many were neutral when it came to World War II.
Cillian Murphy, as Damian- the same actor who pulled off a 2-hour intensely captivating monologue in Breakfast on Pluto- an almost unthinkable acting feat- turns in a mostly wooden performance in this, seemingly going through the motions of the passionate would-be doctor turned patriot, as do the rest of the cast. No close-ups to reveal thought and emotion processes, although the fingernail-pull is plenty close.
We're not sure or maybe even aware that Teddy and Damian are brothers- where's the buildup to all the relationships? Gone is where. Where's the history of their dads and granddads being crushed generation after generation by the Crown? Of the rich Knighted landowners ruling their lands, "gifts of the Crown for services rendered"- oppressing the locals-? Of the Catholic Church and its conflicted role in the Irish misery? missing, missing, missing.
The story seems like a gimme, but I don't know- maybe it was the direction or pace, or maybe Ken Loach presumes that the rest of the world knows the story like the Irish do. Probably a combination of the above, because it never captures the gut passion of so many levels of conflict that the original story has to offer. And that is a shame.
The ending is anti-climactic and I wonder if Loach is aiming for a documentary-drama style. That misses also.
I think of Mickeybo and Me, shot in a time-frame 50 years later, and in Belfast- but utterly grabbing the viewer with its presentation of childish innocence and even studied escapism amidst tragedy.
Everyone seemingly walks through their lines, perhaps convinced that such a passionate story will tell itself- maybe the director told them all exactly that, but guess what? You still have to go out and play the game, as they say, and I think this one was lost.