Mourir à Belfast

This movie has haunted me since I saw it in the mid-1980s. It is one of the very best movies I have ever seen. I have searched in vain for a videotape (later DVD!) since without avail.

This movie is without peer in depicting the Troubles and in its exploration of loyalty and betrayal. It contains one of Sterling Hayden's last performances and, to say the least, he does not disappoint. Craig Wasson offers the best performance of his career in this film. Patricia Quinn demonstrates her capacity for a dramatic role (in sharp contrast to her performance in "Rocky Horror").

Northern Irish partisans of either stripe should be both warned and reassured: the movie is scrupulously even-handed and neither side is portrayed in a flattering light. Rather, it makes the point that the conflict has degenerated into a corrupt exercise in hatred, blood lust, and revenge.

This movie is stark and raw suspense, disillusionment, and heartbreak. I would happily pay $100 for a used VHS of this film.

Other reviewers have covered it well, just letting those who were trying to hunt it down on DVD know that it's available now on Netflix Instant. Well worth the time to watch. It portrays both sides in an equally dismal light. As such, one of the more compelling stories with the troubles as its backdrop. Some of the great Irish actors appear in it, such as Niall Tobín, Ray McAnally and Joe Lynch. The Richard Gere-type American lead is all rage and not a lot of nuance, but can be forgiven. The cynical and dehumanizing way the Anerican pawn is manipulated makes for compelling viewing. It also contains some very daring lines about the role of the church, and accurately foretells its fate in the absence of a common enemy. Some earlier reviewers worried about the level of violence. It would be impossible to set a movie in Belfast in 1973 without losing all credibility, a mistake this movie avoids. I didn't find any scene gratuitous, and the integrity of the movie is the better for it. I would agree with others who have described this as a lost gem.

This is one of the better films on the IRA struggle I have ever seen, despite its age. You also get what looks like a film shot on location in Belfast from the 70's, which surprised me in that it looked like a warzone. Other later films on the subject cannot quite capture the setting as this film does wonderfully. The plot is complex, the acting is good, and it is pretty intense, and overall very well done. For anyone that likes the IRA subject matter it is definitely worth seeing, and one of the best films on that subject that is for unknown reasons, not well-watched.

But it ended a lot earlier than the novel. In the book, Emmett chases Flaherty back to the U.S. and the pair of them end up at the Shepherd's Mass, a Feast of the Assumption event that takes place every year in the mountains of northern Wyoming. Back to the movie: I've tried to find it in video stores and nobody even has it listed. Where can I get a copy?

The young Vietnam War veteran Michael Flaherty, from Detroit, (Craig Wasson) joins the IRA because his Irish grandfather fought for the cause and he has told Michael so many stories of his, and Michael wants to be just like him. After working briefly at the border, Michael's wish is granted- he is sent to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where all you can see is ruins and riots. All the while, Michael is not aware that he has been considered as an outsider and that he has been manipulated. To the IRA, he is nothing but a pawn for their 'public relations'. When Michael realises the brutal truth, he is utterly disillusioned. He only becomes further disillusioned when he has returned to America and his ill grandfather confesses to him yet another harsh truth...

I have been to Belfast, though not in the 1970s, but from what I've read and what I've seen, I can say this film vividly depicts the city of Belfast in the early 1970s, the peak of the Troubles. And not all of them fought for the cause. Some of them were indeed downright terrorists (again, I must reiterate, not ALL of them). The movie also portrays the cunning nature of the British Troops. The ending is a very clever one. I think I should track down the novel.