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Ken Loach remains the British auteur. Route Irish while definitely not his best due to the off-script ad lib workshop style remains a powerful and relevant film. It would have been made into a big Hollywood thriller in the US going all the way up to the Senate and beyond, and this is the film's strength - it focuses on squaddies - simple soldiers - no big politics here - and the film gets its impact from that.

The plot of the man whose best friend joins up because of him then dies is mysterious circumstances in Iraq is a very strong plot - more so that most Loach films.

Set in Liverpool and Iraq the filming, the settings, the language, and even, in places the acting are crude and in your face - this is not Ae Fond Kiss or even The Wind That Shakes The Barley, this is an angry Ken, a Ken saying look this matters forget subtlety - let's just get it done.

The film is carried by Mark Womack who brings both skill as an actor and improviser and an unknown raw almost out of control energy that carries the themes and give the film its power.

All in all, while not Loach's best in terms of film, this should be his most powerful and relevant, but by opting for a crude and broad approach instead of some subtle in with the barrage - left this viewer numbed - some space and silences (Like all over Loach films have had magnificently) would have helped perhaps.

A visceral film but one that overpowers the viewer's emotions too much, one that while still very powerful doesn't linger as other Loach films have.

Many movies are political but just a few directors are as consciously political film-maker like Ken Loach. This work hasn't got a clear left-wing agenda like others but it's his point on the Iraki war and handles subjects discussed upon many occasions, such as the exploitation of the unemployed and war crimes. Aside from the original (in Loach's films) issue, Route Irish is a characteristic production of this director and has many grim sequences. There are also very good acting performances that keep pace with the progress of the story. The conclusion is shocking but on the whole the film is a didactic and angry thriller, in the typical style of the social realist Loach.

A very strong piece of cinema by Ken Loach, away from his usual social dramas, being this more a kind of war-thriller, but not lacking strong denunciation and great courage. The director uses his camera to denounce the crude reality of contractors behind the real stage of Iraqui war. We get to know the life of these contractors, once simply called mercenaries, working for private security firms, whose acting inside wars seem uncontrollable and out of every rule. Loach wants to display and manages to display things in an objective and cold way, regaining the right perspective, showing that although in a war context it is difficult to take the right perspective, there is always, if we want to be honest, a well-cut border between good and evil, good people and bad people, between right and wrong, and this is the most convincing point through the movie. It's difficult to have a conscience with a gun or a bomb in your hands, but when innocent people are killed, and when your conscience prevails, one has to come to terms with it in some way, and the price to be paid may be very high. It's a very harsh movie, it has the crudity of a documentary piece, in search for as much as verity, that's why the more entertaining elements, such as the thriller one, and also the love between Fergus and Frank's wife is treated in a cold way, as if love cannot side with such atrocities. Certainly a thought-provoking, very actual movie which again raises many questions and doubts about the legitimacy of a "just war".

If you want a movie that will hold your attention and leave you feeling like you've watched a great movie, this is it. I am not a connoisseur of Ken Loach, or a movie snob, I just enjoy a movie that holds my attention.

Unlike the other reviewers, I thought the characters were well-drawn and convincing. The effects used on the film itself such as graininess, washed out lomo effect, and darkness in the right places, makes this a pleasure to watch.

The over-use of the f-bomb is a real factor. Men do talk exactly like that, but for a film less would have been more.

The politics of the mercenary world are shown brilliantly and without any sense of preachiness or one-sidedness.

Just an excellent movie.

I almost don't want to be too honest about Ken Loach's latest. He is a national treasure after all. But then I remember what my job here is. 'Route Irish' is different from any other Loach film I've seen. Half the story is set in Iraq (Jordan), and uses techniques more typical of a Blockbuster.

Route Irish was, during the Iraq war, believed to be quite literally the most dangerous road in the world, where suicide bombings, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and other nasties were commonplace. Disbelieving that his best friend and army buddy, Frankie (comedian John Bishop) was KIA, Liverpudlian Fergus (Mark Womack) vows to get to the truth. Frankie, says Fergus, 'was born lucky'. If you can forgive this soupçon of implausibility from which the story emanates, you can enjoy (parts of) the film.

Twenty-four hour news makes us immune to the carnage of war. We tuck into our cornflakes while yawning at Apocalypse Now-style footage. Here, Ken Loach personalises war. He's always used film as a political medium to mirror his Left-leaning views. But there's a distinctly pluralistic advocacy on display in this film. Iraqis are at once sympathised with and blamed. The role of a soldier is both defended and upbraided. And the use of private contractors in the 'war on terror' is equally shielded and condemned.

The only bits that are worthy of Loach are the scenes of tension, for instance when Fergus explains to Rachel (Frankie's partner) that of course Frankie played around: 'Every day out there (Iraq) could be the last – how can you go from that to shopping at Tesco?'.

For such a kindly codger, Loach has quite a tolerance for profanity. The 'f' word doesn't bother me, but it's overdoing it a bit when you put the likes of Tarantino to shame. As the peerless critic Roger Ebert said of another film, 'profanity is used as punctuation'.

Strangely, a full-on waterboarding torture scene has no more terror than an exploding party popper. Clearly not destined to bother the Russian roulette scene from 'The Deer Hunter'. It's in tune with the general tone of the film: big ambitions, too little follow-through.

Various technical points distracted me from an otherwise half-decent melodrama. Fergus casually lets slip that he's ex-SAS. That would imply he's a man of considerable resourcefulness. So why can't he himself extract video clips from Frankie's primitive mobile phone to establish how he died? And why does he need to conduct online conference calls to amateurs for information? What's stopping him from Andy McNabbing his own way into Iraq?

www.scottishreview.net

As I watched this superb Ken Loach film I kept on being reminded of "Get Carter". It wasn't the storyline but the imagery, the characters, the acting, and the reasons why this film works so well. And the central idea, as in "Get Carter", is about seeking justice for something that has happened to someone close.

From the moment we observe the bereaved Rachel, played with uncanny realism by Andrea Lowe, walk up and symbolically thump Mark Womack's Fergus we know we are in for a tough and uncompromising movie. And, as the story unfolds, we observe Womack's troubled character go through so many transitions whilst being so convincingly set on obtaining a certain justice for his best mate Frankie (John Bishop).

And although there are complexities in unravelling who did what and to whom the basic story is very simple, so simple it tells itself right to the very end. There is no room for sentimentality in this film, no clear divide between the good and the bad, we are simply left to imagine what we might do in the same circumstances. If there is a moral to the story it is the price of justice and the cost of being a survivor when things go wrong for someone very close to you.

The acting across the board is of the highest standard but I will single out Andrea Lowe and Mark Womack for performances which are stunningly realistic, beautifully honed and so powerfully delivered. These two just hold you in their grasp whenever they are on screen.

It is not a film for everyone and the subject matter is very controversial but it achieves what it sets out to do. It makes you think about what you might do in the same situation, how far you might go, how guilty you might feel, and it does so without ever sensationalising what is going on.

I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys being immersed in intelligent films.

The private companies with special tasks in Iraq are since long a problem. They aren't bound by the rules which regular armed forces have. They also exist in Britain and this new Ken Loach movie is about them.

A taxi with two children is destroyed. Later one of the contracted soldiers is killed and his friend tries to find out what happened. Who are the bad guys here? That warhead in the barrack or somebody or somebodies much higher in the hierarchy? This is not a typical Ken Loach drama, since it's on the surface more of a typical war thriller than an outcry about social injustice. But social injustice becomes the main theme. Loach is one of the few remaining outraged society commentators. We shall be glad we have him.

Dull. Starts slowly and confusingly and doesn't get better.

I kept waiting for it to find a higher gear, and things to fall into place, but it and they never did. Just seemed to drag on and on.

In contrast to the most successful war or Iraq war film this century so far..

I remember going to see 'The Hurt Locker' with high hopes because I had been sold on the hype, it had a female director tipped to win awards and I really liked what she(K.Bigalow) did years before with 'Point Break' a fun(and sometimes funny for the wrong reasons) crime caper.

After the credits rolled I was in two minds(similar to when I first saw 'Point Break') because I appreciated the technical aspects of the film but something seemed to be missing... My big problem became clear when I overheard people talking on the way out. In particular, I heard two teenagers summary comments to each other, that it was 'pretty good','a bit of fun' and 'there were some really good special effects and action sequences' which to me, is a summary of what most people said to me to date about the film.

No one seemed to care that they had for the purpose of entertainment just sat, popcorn in hand, and watched a film about a war that was still ongoing outside the cinema(albeit five thousand miles away) at the same time...

So, I left the cinema feeling like Walt Disney had final cut on the production and it was financed by Haliburton and McDonalds etc. I was in a state of mild mental shock... Sickened, disgusted and annoyed with the world, to be more precise...

Anyway, I am generally interested in 'facts' and the 'details' of what is going on around me and why things happen the way they do. Cinema for me is not about entertainment. Going to the 'movies' to be entertained, escapism etc. is fine. I do it but it's a different experience. If I go to see a film about a current war I would expect it to say something meaningful.

So for me, the Hurt Locker is the benchmark epitome of total bullshit filmmaking in the 21st century and so offensive(even just in it's inception alone) on so many levels that I really wouldn't know where to start or finish for fear of ranting into oblivion...

Anyway, I have seen many documentaries, read many articles watched endless news footage, reports and interviews on the current War(S) in the middle east and I'm still not 100% sure what is actually going on.

One thing that I do know for sure though, is that all other feature length films related to the Iraq War in the past decade(apart from a few documentaries) portray the allied forces as the victims and all are dedicated to their military forces... WTF is that all about...?

Everything in the 'Route Irish' story by K.Loach, although fictional with use of some artistic license, has happened in real life!... It will also continue to happen again as a matter of fact...

If you want escapism and have to be entertained all the time then you know where to go for your fix.

Some people are still rolling out the same old polemic argument about Loach/'Route Irish' that he/the film is lefty, over-long, boring, preachy, flawed in acting,writing,direction and it sometimes looks like it was made for 50 quid. etc. etc. ...But we must appreciate him, social justice, national treasure etc. etc.

BLAH BLAH BLAH....

Trust me, the film is not perfect by any means but see it for yourself because those people are idiots...

-If you are one of them you can stick it in your Hurt Locker...

:P

Dubman.

The '...unique angle*' being the people who are the real victims and the people who are really responsible...

_______________________

'Cold Hard Reality is always so boring and difficult to watch.....' -Another complete idiot.

What an utter pile of drivel.

Ken Loach can be quite on the edge at times, love him or loathe him, whatever.

This movie IS NOT KEN LOACH - he must have been out in some bar somewhere swigging ale when this was spat out.

The acting is terrible, but can in some respects be forgiven because of the atrocious script, whoever wrote this drivel should have their hands cut off.

Sorry, but this has to be one of the biggest let downs this year, I expected something interesting, all I got was boring boring "Stereotyped " Scousers who were portrayed as usual as THICK, trying to speak English as if they had all been to Cambridge! - It doesn't work Ken - That kind of crap went out in the 1980's along with your excuses - Margaret Thatcher! Not for me!

It's hard to peel your eyes away from this one. It's not that there's a lot happening in Route Irish or that there's much action to be had, but it's more about the way the story unfolds, and the story elements it canvasses.

This more of a slow-burn mystery thriller, as you're left guessing throughout the entire film, nearly right up to the end, as to "who dun-it?" regarding the death of a relatively upstanding PMC named Frankie, the friend of the main character, Fergus.

A large portion of the film -- as bits and pieces unravel the murder-mystery of Frankie's death -- is about the PTSD and guilt of the soldiers/PMCs who survived their ordeals in Iraq while also dealing with the carnage, chaos, and abhorrent acts they committed while there.

This film -- like many other reviewers pointed out -- doesn't pull any punches. Interspersed throughout the story are grisly images of death and carnage; bloody and burned carcasses removed from explosive-hewn rubble.

However, the film isn't about the lack of humanity that these PMCs doled out overseas, but rather how far removed they've become from their own humanity in their homeland, and the disconnect civilians have with people who engaged in unspeakable war-crimes.

There are really no good guys here, but the film doesn't want you to dwell so much on that as is the fact that under the right pretenses seemingly good men can go bad when given the green light in a foreign country where the rules can be bent and broken at will.

In any case, Route Irish is a hard hitting film. It is slow, though. Some people may have a hard time with the pace and the fact that there aren't any traditional action sequences, which may put some people off. It's not a quick-edited mystery film either, with lots of snappy dialogue or fanciful set pieces. No chase scenes. No fisticuffs.

This is about as grounded and realistic a mystery-thriller as you can get. It's probably not for everyone, and the war-imagery and footage may be a bit harrowing for those who like slow-burn mystery films but don't quite care realistic war violence.

The chemistry between actor Mark Womack and actress Andrea Lowe is handled really well, and their relationship definitely comes across as troubled and emotionally fractured but also necessary for two people trying to heal and overcome a disturbing trauma. It's a difficult film to properly compare and categorize, but well worth watching for those who don't mind an honest depiction of a mystery wrapped around the themes of war and greed.

Just adding my balance to the reviews here. The acting does stand out as being particularly off in points, as you can see some of the actors eyes searching in the back of their heads trying to remember their lines as though they had received the script that morning. The story was hard to follow and unconvincing as a reason for a conspiracy. On the plus side, it did have potential, however potential is not any use to a finished product. I have to agree with another reviewer who suggested that Hollywood would have done a better job of it...and THAT really pains me to say as I do love British films mainly for that exact reason that we tend to make more subtle realistic action which makes it more believable and therefore more thrilling by its realism instead of impossible stunts (read Mission Impossible and anything by jon woo)

A timely and hard hitting film about the Iraq conflict from the great Ken Loach and written by his long time colleague, Paul Laverty which deals mostly with the role of private security firms (mercenaries working for the various western governments) and their lawless actions out there in a conspiracy thriller with a very real edge that also shows the pressures on soldiers in civilian life to conform to normality when leaving a war zone. Using relatively unknown actors with Mark Womack starring and John Bishop (the comedian, surprisingly good) and Andrea Lowe co-starring, it is in this that a few flaws are shown as there is a couple of scenes which really don't look too convincing in my opinion but oblivious to this, it is still a very real feeling film for me in representing Womack as a troubled ex-SAS soldier who is working as a security soldier (merc) with his best friend joining him in Iraq for the big pay and Womacks relationship after the death with Bishops girlfriend (here in lies some great acting between Womack and Andrea Lowe). What transpires from the start is Womack not making a flight for a job due to a fight in Liverpool and Bishop getting killed in a manner which seems suspicious to him and from here you get a great 'who dun-nit' style thriller which doesn't pull it's punches in some of it's scenes in dealing with the guilty parties but also a good message and insight into what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan with the rise of private armies working for various corporations that are aligned with our governments and also some of the atrocities which happen on a regular basis that are swept under the carpet. Not in the league of 'the wind that shakes the barley' or 'my name is Joe' but still a entertaining thriller with a good message.

Script written by 12 year old good idea anti war but very poorly told,and I love all of ken loach stuff

This anti-war film, if I may classify it in that way, presents a perspective that is very different from any existing anti-war films produced by Hollywood. It shows that: no heroes in this film; no sound solution to resolve the injustice in the system; the expert fighter trained and produced by the war system can fight back, but resulted in double/triple tragedy. The investigation of Frankie's death did not start by an American Senator; instead, it was doubted by the death's best friend, a lad who's also been a soldier. The protagonist had / tried to have sex with the death's wife, but it wasn't straightforward (because he was trained to be a fighter). Apart from one conclusion, the film blurs the line of justice and injustice in the war system. That unquestionable conclusion is that: the war on Iraq is inhumane and contractors are unnecessary evils.

Of course it evokes some social political problems, very real. And related to modern issues, topics: military private contractors, but the way to tell this story is surprising from a film maker as Ken Loach. It is not a Jason Bourne nor 007 movie, but is rather action oriented for me, and still surprising from a director as Loach. I also know that he has also made some more or less action films such as THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY, but it spoke of the war in Ireland. Here it is nearly a movie where I would have imagined Jason Statham. Nearly. It then would have been an intellectual Jason Statham's vehicle, whilst it is here an action, badass Ken Loach.... But Ken Loach's fans won't be deceived. The torture sequence is just a joke, at least for the first part, in the final part, this is really gritty though. But at the beginning, I thought I could do it with my grandma, she would drink her tea in the same time. Putting the wet napkin on a face for only two seconds is just a joke. But for the end, we see just the torturer leaving the napkin and putting water on it without stopping.... This is realistic and gritty.

A conspiracy film about private military contractors during the Iraq war. some compelling and controversial moments. Not always a comfortable watch. Very angsty and the dialogue too often shouted. Mark Womack was convincing, John Bishop was surprisingly good too but Andrea Lowe's performance wasn't doing it for me. All in all not a great film, not a bad one either. A decent film with a slow start and prone to the odd dull moment.