'71 (M). Director: Yann Demange. Starring: Jack O'Connell, Richard Dormer, Sean Harris, Sam Reid, Charlie Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Martin McCann. 100 minutes
Rarely have the Troubles of early 1970s Belfast been so grippingly portrayed. Debutante feature director Demange's thriller '71, about the ordeal of a young British soldier, Gary Hook (O'Connell), who becomes separated from his unit during a riot and spends a night lost in one of the city's most dangerous neighbourhoods, plays like a 100-minute nightmare of murky morals and ever present peril.
Demange gives us just enough time to get to know our hero before he drops him into hell. We see Hook engaged in combat training with his comrades at their barracks in rural Derbyshire; shortly afterwards they are told they are to be sent to Belfast. Hook spends an afternoon playing soccer with and saying goodbye to his adoring younger brother, who lives in an institution (presumably they are orphans).
Hook arrives in Belfast to discover a situation fractured along numerous lines. It is not merely Catholic versus Protestant; the radicalised youths of the Provisional IRA are at odds with their established forebears, and within the British military itself, the covert, counter-insurgency Military Reaction Force, led by cocksure Captain Sandy Browning (Harris), has also become a force of incipient violence.
Hook is sent with his unit by their cleanskin commanding officer, Lieut Armitage (Reid), to support local police in a crackdown on a Catholic community. With alarming naivety, Armitage insists they leave their riot gear behind; they should be seen as protectors, not aggressors. Predictably, when members of the community later arrive at the scene to resist and provoke the soldiers, chaos ensues.
Predictable, yes, but Demange, a seasoned television director, proves his adeptness at building tension. He cuts back and forth between the increasingly frightened faces of the soldiers — like Hook, they are mostly young boys — the increasingly defiant faces of the protestors, and the brutal actions of the police that are like sparks to fuel. Violence swells and eventually bursts in one shocking, climactic moment.
Hook finds himself abandoned by his unit, unarmed, and running on foot from two Provisional assailants, Paul (Haggerty) and Sean (Keoghan) — the latter of whom is younger even than Hook — who, fired by ideological fervour, are out for his blood. This chase scene is another bravura sequence from Demange; breathtaking action with the highest of stakes for the lost and vulnerable Hook.
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