Irish Film Institute -’71

’71

Director: YANN DEMANGE

100 minutes, U.K., 2014, Colour, D-Cinema


This film closes on Wednesday, November 12th.

It is 1971, and with escalating tensions in Northern Ireland, Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell) is one of a number of young English soldiers sent to keep the peace on the streets of Belfast. Clueless about the politics of the place and ill-served by his commanding officers, Hook is left to fend for himself in an unfamiliar, unforgiving city after a routine house search descends into a chaotic riot and he is separated from the rest of his unit.

As night comes down and the soldier attempts get back to the army base, Hook’s disorientating odyssey brings him into contact with Unionist and Republican paramilitary units, as well duplicitous forces stoking the flames of conflict, waging their own dirty war. Acclaimed TV director Yann Demange delivers a notable debut feature, an exhilarating action movie that has more in common with the work of Walter Hill or John Carpenter than it does with other depictions of The Troubles in recent British cinema. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

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