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come out, ye black and tans This film promised to be nothing short of amazing. First it has Cillian Murphy, Dreamboat Extraordinaire. And A Damn Fine Actor. Second--Irish history! Both ingredients for an excellent movie!!! AND--neither Cameron Diaz nor Julia Roberts is in it, butchering the language and accent as the Love Interest. *phew* After winning the Palme d'Or in the spring of 2006, I waited rather impatiently for a year before it came Stateside. I was finally able to see it in April, and I must say it did not disappoint. Not entirely, anyway. No one has ever accused Ken Loach of being subtle, and he's no different with his latest film. From the very beginning, we know that the Brits--or Black and Tans, so named because of their uniforms--are The Bad Guys. What Loach does not make clear, however, is that most of the British soldiers are just coming back from The Great War, and have no idea what to do with their lives now. They're shell-shocked, lost, and have lost more of their friends and brothers than they could ever have imagined. And then their country sends them to Ireland to fight the "rebels". But that's another story, I'm afraid. This story's all about the brave people who fought to make their country their own...yes, those same folks who became the IRA. It stars Cillian Murphy as Damien, a reluctant hero, abandoning his plans of studying medicine in London to join his brother in the fight against the British. Padraic Delaney perfectly complements Cillian Murphy as Teddy, Damien's older brother. Teddy, a skilled and heroic leader, talks Damien into joining the uprising but finds that Damien may be the more militant of the two. By 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty established the Irish Free State, essentially splitting the country--and its people--in two. Teddy agrees with the Treaty and joins the organization of the new Irish Free State, urging his friends and brother to support peace. Damien, however, does not wish to concede that any part of Ireland should be ruled by Britain. So now we've got ourselves a civil war--and just like any other civil war, friends and/or brothers aren't always on the same side. Dramatic...thought-provoking...shocking...heartbreaking...and no, it does not glorify the IRA, in case you were wondering. It's a good film that opens our eyes to a history we may not have known much about. Oh--and the music is fantastic. The title comes from a 19th century song by Robert Dwyer Joyce. It's only sung once during the course of the film--and believe me, you won't forget it when you hear it. But the rest of the music fits every mood, every colour of the film. So that's my two cents. email this review to a friend
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