dan-476

Ronan Bennett's four part television drama for the BBC and RTE was already controversial before it reached British and Irish television screens. Ulster Unionist leader and leader of the Northern Ireland power sharing government, David Trimble berated the BBC for making the drama at a sensitive time in the far from steady peace process. He claimed the series would be used as a propaganda for modern day Irish republicans, he attacked Bennett's own political convictions and a number of alterations made to actual historical events in the series.

But setting aside the argument over whether it was wise for David Trimble to attack the series before it was even screened, it has to be said 'Rebel Heart' is a bit of a disappointment. Unusually for Bennett (who penned the Robert Carlyle gangster flic FACE and the excellent pre-IRA ceasefire Maze Prison drama, LOVE LIES BLEEDING) it is an uneven work, painted in broad brush strokes.

Compressing six years of Irish history into four episodes, the drama tells the story of Ernie Coyne (James D'Arcy), a young idealistic middle class Dubliner drawn into the 1916 Easter Rising. During the Rising, he falls for a Belfast republican volunteer Ita Feeney (Paloma Baeza) and falls in with working class Dubliners, Kelly (Frank Laverty) and Tom O'Toole (Vincent Regan). His subsequent imprisonment after the Easter Rising and the disapproval of his family does not deter him from joining Michael Collins' bloody guerilla war against the British. His involvement in the IRA takes him to Belfast and Cork but is also intertwined with his romance with Ita. Along the way, he rubs shoulders with real life Irish historical figures like Collins (Brendan Coyle), Eamon de Valera (Andrew Connolly), Padraig Pearse (Frank MacCusker) and James Connolly (Bill Patterson).

So what's the problem? REBEL HEART starts off like Ken Loach's amazing Spanish Civil War drama LAND AND FREEDOM but never really sustains the momentum. One can't help feeling that four episodes are not really sufficient to do this kind of story justice and Bennett should really have been given two more episodes to flesh out his characters, storyline and properly examine a seminal moment in Irish history. The series is beautifully shot and the acting is committed. Special praise should go to Vincent Regan, Frank Laverty and Frank MacCusker. There is also an all too brief cameo from Liam Cunningham who continues to impress on the small or big screen. James D'Arcy is a suitably stiff lead and Paloma Baeza's feisty west Belfast republican (complete with accent) is spot on.

To Bennett's credit, this no dewy eyed, one sided hymn to Irish republicanism. The 1916 Rising is anything but glorious and there is a brutality to not just the Ulster police's massacres but also to Ernie's violence. REBEL HEART is not without its merits. It's just a pity that with a little bit more time it could have been so, so much better.

So what are we to make of Neil Jordan's 'In Dreams' and the wide and varied responses to it?

The film bombed just about everywhere in the world and yet looking through the user's comments on this website there are those who passionately adore it and those who passionately detest it.

I fall into the first camp.

For a start, it's a psychological horror movie that is genuinely scary and emotionally draining in a way that few films are these days.

Okay, the plot stretches belief but then again, I give you almost every mainstream horror movie made.

Compare it with the Sixth Sense which is equally far fetched but much less demanding.

You will see Jordan has turned out a much darker, more disturbing, more meaningful and more interesting multi-layered film.

Also, it has the advantage of not having Bruce Willis in it, turning in the sort of wooden performance he trotted out in The Sixth Sense.

In Dreams just stretches its audience.

Jordan and fellow scriptwriter, Bruce Robinson cleverly play with their audience's perceptions of their main character.

Is Claire genuinely going through these horrific experiences or is she going mad?

There is also a terrible cruel streak running through the film - especially in its treatment of its heroine and her family - which is so unusual and refreshing for a Hollywood film (perhaps this is the main reason why audiences and critics were so alienated by it, they're just not used to it).

Visually, Jordan's movie is sumptuous - the rich reds and greens, the autumnal colours, the ghostly underwater sequences.

And there are also the performances.

Bening, in probably her most neurotic role ever, is as compelling as always.

Aidan Quinn is suitably solid in the role of her troubled, if flawed husband.

Stephen Rea turns in another subtle performance as the psychiatrist. Paul Guilfoyle is also effective as the cop.

And then, there's Robert Downey Junior - so over the top you're waiting for him to crash land with one hell of a thump.

But then again, OTT is nothing new to this genre. I give you Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Perkins in Psycho!

In Dreams is a multilayered film, attacking you visually, mentally and emotionally on a number of levels.

First, there is the nature of dreams and reality, madness and sanity, fairytales and fact.

Secondly, you can read it as a love letter to Hitchcock. There is so much Hitchcock in this film - Rebecca, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Notorious, Suspicion (they're all alluded to here and many, many more of the Great Master's movies).

Thirdly, there's many recurrent themes and imagery from Jordan's own work in here.

We have the psychologically disturbed boy from The Butcher Boy, cross dressing, gender bending in The Crying Game, holding captives in a gothic forest from the same film, even the famous run through the forest, the leap from a dam in We're No Angels, the tortured monster a la Interview with the Vampire.

Fourthly, there's the apples, those damned red apples that keep troubling everyone. Shades of Adam and Eve? Fairytales like Snow White?

In Dreams may not be Jordan's finest work but there is plenty in here to enjoy and to discover on repeated viewings.

The movie is uncomfortable viewing at times but gloriously over the top.

Time will tell how 'In Dreams' will be viewed in the context of Jordan's overall work and whether it will be a cult movie.

I think the biggest surprise of all is that it got through the Hollywood studio system. Full marks to Dreamworks for doing so.

John Boorman's 'The General' was always going to be a controversial movie and a tough sell for its filmmakers.

It's anti-hero, Martin Cahill was Ireland's most infamous criminal of recent times - so much so that there has been four screen depictions of him (Ken Stott in The Vicious Circle, Kevin Spacey in Ordinary Decent Criminal, Pete Postlethwaite in When The Sky Falls and Brendan Gleeson in The General).

He was guilty of some of the country's most outrageous crimes and capable of real brutality - most notably, injuring a forensic scientist in a car bomb and literally nailing one of his gang members to the floor.

Add into the mix the fact that the film has a largely Irish cast deploying thick Dublin accents and that Boorman chose to shoot it in black and white and you have a movie which wasn't exactly going to jump out at international and especially, US audiences demanding to be loved.

The result is perhaps Boorman's finest work, certainly on a par with the wonderful 'Hope and Glory'.

The film is also by a furlong the best of the four movies depicting Cahill's life.

This is in large part due to the brilliant performance of Irish actor, Brendan Gleeson in the central role.

The Irish Depardieu not only physically transforms himself into Cahill but captures the rebellious spirit, the intelligence and the charm.

It would have been easy to depict Cahill as a monster.

However, Gleeson and Boorman treat their audience with respect, building up a character with shades of darkness and light.

On one hand, viewers are given an appreciation of how "The General" was able to command the love of two sisters, his children and the adulation of his criminal associates.

However, Boorman's film is certainly no love letter to Cahill. We also see his sadistic side as in the bombing of the forensic scientist's car and crucifixion of one of his gang members, his lack of consideration and compassion for the 100 workers laid off at a storeroom he has robbed, his cold bargaining with the sexually abused daughter of one of his gang members.

The supporting cast also put in fine performances too.

Jon Voight not only masters the rural Irish brogue of the Garda (police) inspector bedevilled by Cahill but also the attitudes. It is a tough but ultimately sympathetic performance of a cop dragged unwillingly into the gutter.

Maria Doyle Kennedy and Angeline Ball give charming performances as the sisters who were also the women in Cahill's rather unorthodox life, with Ciaran Fitzgerald also making a sympathetic son.

Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley and Eanna MacLiam all put in spirited performances as members of Cahill's gang. McGinley, in particular, creates another memorably seedy performance as Gary.

Special mention should also go to Pat Laffan as a brutish Garda sergeant.

With it's cracking script, Richie Buckley's musical score and the black and white camerawork, 'The General' is easily up there with the best of modern movies made in Ireland (certainly, up there with Neil Jordan's 'The Butcher Boy' and Alan Parker's 'The Commitments').

It is a must see - a film which demands cult status.