Sad, gripping, brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2006)

It's hard to say how good this film is. At the end you are so emotionally wrenched by the powerful last two scenes. What is so good about the film is that although it covers the period, Ireland struggle for independence and subsequent civil war, that is covered by another great film Michael Collins it concentrates and how these events effect ordinary people in a small community in Western Ireland.
The violence becomes very personal, both the attacks by the Black and Tans, the execution of traitors in the republican group and the final scenes where one brother orders the execution of another. It exposes how war can brutalise all personal relations.
A must see.