Agente C - Dupla Identidade

This is director James Marsh's first fiction movie. He has hitherto been known as a great documentary maker, including last year's excellent Project Nim. In Shadow Dancer he has put together a film set during the Troubles period of Northern Ireland's history. In it a girl with IRA connections is coerced into becoming an informant for MI5. This leads to several compromising and dangerous situations. While the movie is set within a clear political situation, it isn't really a political film. The focus is specifically on the role of the informer in this powder keg context. At the time there were many people in similar situations and the movie tries to look at both the dangers that they found themselves in and the complex moral dilemmas that effected people on all sides of the conflict, both republicans and British intelligence. As such, Shadow Dancer is about people, as opposed to politics and it doesn't really make any subjective comment on rights and wrongs. It's clear that both sides of the fence act in sordid ways. The distrust amongst the high command on both sides is shown to be similar. Civil war is never a simple affair.

It's a well-acted and intelligently written film. It's low-key and pensive rather than a suspenseful thrill-ride. Perhaps it's a little too slow paced and sober for its own good at times but it does gather steam in the final third and things are wrapped up quite effectively by the end with a series of events that fall into place with tragic inevitability.

Shadow Dancer follows an Irish woman, who has a son. She works for the IRA in the 1990's. When she gets caught attempting to place a bomb on a London subway she must become an informant for the MI5.

Interesting story. I really had no clue about this film, I was just bored and looking for a film to watch. So you can guess I have never read the book so I do not know how closely it follows it. However the author did write the screenplay. Anyway, I thought the film itself was OK. In general, everything felt like it was neutral/ on the line. Nothing really stuck out and there was no real memorable scenes. The film also seemed very slow and dragged out.

The acting from everyone involved was good. Nothing special, but nothing terrible. However, my main complaint would have to be the characters. I didn't feel connected to any of the characters, especially the protagonist , which is the main thing really. I felt the IRA characters were too clichéd and just the same generic IRA men as in every other film with IRA men in them.

Overall, the film did not impress me. However, I wasn't expecting anything special so I suppose it balances it out. I'd give it a solid 6/10. But, gun to my head - would I recommend it? - No. Probably not.

"Shadow Dancer" from 2012 stars Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, and Gillian Anderson. I'm not sure what the situation with this movie was because it only made $400,000.

The movie takes place in Belfast, and in the first scene, a young girl, Collette, is told by her father to buy him some cigarettes. She doesn't want to go, so instead, she sends her little brother Sean.

The action then shifts to 1993, and we see the adult Collette (Riseborough) deliberately leaving her purse in the London tube; as she escapes from the tube, she is arrested. An MI-5 agent, Mac (Owen) offers her a deal -- no prison time if she will become an informant and at the end of her time working for him, a new identity. Because she has a young son, she agrees.

Mac ultimately learns that his superior (Anderson) is using Collette as a red herring to protect her own mole inside the Irish organization. Mac tries to find out who the mole is and remove Collette from a dangerous situation.

This movie is sparse on dialogue and, frankly, action, particularly at the beginning as we see Collette on what seems to be an endless train ride and finally dropping her purse. After that, things pick up. The cinematography is dreary, with Ireland looking like it's one step up from a trailer park in most scenes.

Andrea Riseborough, who can be beautiful and glamorous, is photographed harshly here, and she's excellent as a young woman caught in the nightmare of having to betray her brothers and answer to their trigger-happy leader Kevin (David Wilmot) and to Mac. She is natural and realistic in underplaying the role of a young Irish girl under incredible tension. Owen is good as the protective Mac, tough and persuasive.

The big problem is the lack of family connection, that is, Collette's relationship with her worried mother and her brothers, who are entrenched in a violent world. Shadow Dancer concentrates on the relationship between Mac and Collette, where showing more within the family would have brought us into the film more deeply.

We're led to believe certain things in "Shadow Dancer," and it's not until the end of the movie that we realize what a good script it was, and how well it is directed by James Marsh.

A sober movie showing the impact of violence and stress on one family.

With films like In The Name of the Father, Michael Collins, and Hunger, you really have to have a great film about the IRA to get attention. This film not only succeeds as a film that belongs with the others mentioned, but it is really an impressive film.

The lighting, scenery, costumes and photography, and background music all contribute to the film in a way that one expects of a great film about Britain in the 90s.

Andrea Riseborough (Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley), Domhnall Gleeson (Anna Karenina), David Wilmot (Intermission), and Brid Brennan (Dancing at Lughnasa) gave notable performances allowing us to really feel the personal dilemmas and betrayal they experienced.

Good espionage films tend to keep my interest, and this was edge-of-the- seat action.

Based on my experience, the distributors may have committed a terrible misjudgement for they should have made this a film for TV rather than the cinema. There were 4 people in total when we went to watch the film and that was par for the course for the week apparently. The cinema manager suggested it would be pulled pretty quickly.

Such a shame, because it is a fine film, excellent when the scenes are based in Belfast, with ALL the actors who played the Irish parts absolutely first class. You felt you were in Belfast and the tension took you there. Location scenes good.

Less so the part played by Gillian Anderson. She was OK but a bit wooden. The MI5 scenes generally did not get off the ground until near the end when there was a great twist.

Clive Owen was the biggest enigma of the film. I am still not sure if he was OK, average or weak in the part he played. First impressions were could have been done better definitely, but the low-key interpretation may have had some merit. Owen just seemed to drift through it all and when he got angry it fell flat.

I would recommend anyone to go and watch this well-directed film. It is a good story from the writer which needs all the support it can get based on our experience of row after row of empty seats.

People tend to forget their history even that happened in their lifetime. Tragic truth be told.