By Linda Winsh-Bolard
Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess ) is a Catholic living in 1988 North Ireland. His options are limited; worker's unions prefer Protestants while the IRA punishes thieves. Martin sells stolen goods from a suitcase and stays clear of politics and God in whose name deadly games are played (he makes this clear on his first date with Lara, played by Nathalie Press, in beautifully crafted and delivered monolog).
As the commentary, read by Ben Kingsley who plays Special Forces officer Fergus, says: he’s lived on the outskirts of the society for so long that he had forgotten there is anything else.
His ability to move unnoticed makes Martin attractive to both sides of the war: both, the IRA and the British Special Forces, make him an offer to join. Fergus tells him: It’s harder to live than to die, they offer you death for the cause, we offer you life.
Martin chooses to become an informant in hopes of saving lives. Perhaps he does save them. He is credited with saving 50 men. I cannot imagine how such decision is made or lived with. I certainly hope never to find out and the film, wisely, stays away from a choice that very few can truly comprehend.
Depiction of the war, known as The Troubles, is nearly impartial; it pitied friends, neighbors and coworkers against each other; both sides willing to kill for their beliefs. IRA wanted to join the Republic of Eyre, known as Ireland, the Protestants preferred to stay within the UK.
There a sequence of intercut threats when Martin listens to Fergus and an IRA leader, both describing the torture the other side will inflict on him if he is caught. Both have dead bodies to show, the IRA also presents torture in living color while asking Martin to shoot the victim.
While Martin risks his life, he falls in love and has a son, starts a job and quarrels with his Mom. Even though we often forget it, daily lives have to go on during wars. One of his friends has his legs broken by the IRA, another is killed by Special Forces.
At the end, Martin and Fergus risk their futures to help one another in a war that is often run from distance for very different reasons than freedom, safety or decent life for the people involved.
The brutal irony of the situation is that if Northern Ireland had became part of the Republic of Eyre, very likely the IRA and the Protestant army would have been annihilated by system that is foreign to both.
Director Kari Skogland shot a film with no sentimentality but plenty of moral wrestling. She fully matches the skills of Kathryn Bigelow in The Hurt Cabinet. They represent new female directors who can do anything and everything they like, and do it well. It was a long journey since the "chick films" showed up and we are glad to have you.
Jim Sturgess portrays man with no ambitions to become a hero who is forced by circumstances to make difficult choices and finds out that he is capable of making them, humanely, with no pretensions and great skills. Ben Kingsley is his usual wonderfully human, but sadly disillusioned, self.
It is a sad tale, because Martin is a real man, still on the run, having left his wife and children behind to spare them from sharing their lives with a marked man. The last publicized attempt on his life took place in Canada 10 years ago.
It is also a brave tale because nothing was changing in Northern Ireland until the Irish themselves started to talk about what was going on, until they faced, openly, their problems and the long history these problems have. Until their own dialog started, they were trapped in prejudice, hatred and mistrust. Watching the film from this point of view, we learn a lesson: there is no progress until the past is spoken about and, as much of it as possible, resolved. Silence is deadly. May we all follow that lesson.
The film is “inspired” by the book by Martin McGartland and Nicholas Davies Fifty Dead Men Walking, which means that liberties were taken with the original.
