ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre

Poignant documentary covering the senseless atrack on Ireland's top showband, recounted by surviving members. The loss of life for the murdered was one thing but the effect on the surviving was also tragic.

The remastered series is overall speaing really enticing and interesting. It's just that they maybe should call the series "unsolved". Everything depicted or shown in these investigations is always interesting and to degree sometimes despicable or just plain unbelievable - and in this case you wonder how certain things could happen and others had not been questioned.

So having someone going in, shining a light on these things is really something noble. But apart from that the overall "short" running time also helps keep audiences interested in what happens or rather what happened. Documentaries are on the rise and the Remastered series is riding that wave smoothly ...

I grew up during the troubles, even had bomb attacks in more than one home town. At the time we were fed news stories that the IRA were monsters, and the British authorities were protecting us the best they could. Then Maggie Thatcher let the special forces run rampant with her blessing, murder and execution without trial became state sanctioned. Little did we know; It turns out that we'd already been at it for a decade before, patsy's and intelligence plots and plans were already in the armoury and being used to the max. Let's remember, MI6 trained the CIA in their early days. The shame and anger I feel is very real, my distrust of Labour and Tory leaders all the more amplified, after all, these are privileged politicians exacting plans on the powerless and innocent for some kind of political advantage. Ken Livingstone, an outside member of the ruling elite raised questions he was poo poo'd for, but was dead right. Steven Travers, the bass player and relentless pursuer of the truth has almost, finally, been vindicated and proven right. I really hope he has his day in court pointing a finger at the guilty. And I hope that he's joined by all of the discredited British intelligence operatives that spoke out because they knew it was crooked and wrong, submitting detailed reports that proved as much, but were ignored and then discredited by the British authorities. I am a British subject, and I feel nothing but guilt.

I believe this came in at around 70 minutes in length. It feels sort of in-between a true documentary and something that VH1 would have put out back in the day. The jump to the massacre is very quick - - I actually would have liked to known more about the band itself. The concept of what an Irish showband was was foreign to me. The claim of them being the Irish Beatles (which I'm not sure if even the surviving members considered to be valid) really isn't established. For me it was on the 6/7 border in terms of rating - - nudged it to the higher of the two because of the humanity of Stephen Travers, which in many ways becomes what the documentary is truly about.

The Miami Showband was a popular band in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. One night, while traveling back into the Irish Republic, they were targeted and stopped by the UVF (Protestant paramilitary volunteers) while crossing the border. When the stop went bad, the band members were shot and left for dead.

This documentary follows the investigation into this tragedy and the original dark plan of the UVF. It discusses the involvement of the British government with the UVF, and it shines a spotlight on the tactics used against the Irish separatists.

This is a great movie if you're curious about the troubles or want to educate yourself against potential government overreach.