Films that choose to plonk its protagonist in hostile surroundings for the duration of one, endless, unbearably stressful night aren’t exactly thin on the ground and have proved to be as diverse as Martin Scorsese’s After Hours is as John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. However, in 2014, Yann Demange’s debut feature, ’71, put a new spin on this trope by dumping its terrified lead in the middle of Dublin during the early years of the infamous Troubles where everyone seemed to be at each others throats and chaos reigned is formally quiet city streets.
While other war related movies have attempted the same on a grander scale (Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down is a good example), Demange’s sweat inducing thriller instead reels back its focus to deal specifically with a single new recruit from the British army who soon realises he’s a little worm on a big fucking hook.
John Carpenter’s Escape From Belfast, anyone?
Gary Hook is fresh out of training when he suddenly finds that his previous placement in Germany has been suddenly changed to get more boots on the ground in Ireland as the unrest between Irish Catholics and Ulster Protestants has heated up to a dangerous degree thanks to the fact that Northern Ireland was still being rules by Great Britain. Disturbed by this potentially dangerous turn of events because he’s left a younger brother behind in care, Gary and his fellow soldiers are dropped in at the deep end on their very first day, sent deep into a volatile area without riot gear by their inexperienced Second Lieutenant to help out the Royal Ulster Constabulary, they are initially met with bag of piss and shit thrown at them, but things soon escalate when houses are turned over in the search for hidden guns.
Bags of piss are soon replaced with bricks and after some of the soldiers sustain injuries, things all go to hell in a hand basket.
Separated from his regiment while trying to stop a child stealing a dropped rifle, Gary soon finds himself a stranger in a strange land as the violence turns deadly when pistol packing members of the Provisional IRA show up and after making a break for it, Gary us soon hopelessly lost in the war torn streets of a city where half the population would gladly see him dead.
As the night progresses, Gary bounces between the two sides as the Troubles reveals itself to be far more complicated that he ever could have imagined. Catholics may be butting heads with Protestants and the British, but there’s tension and dissent between the members of the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA too who want to handle things in very different ways – but what makes matters worse is that members of the British Military Reaction Force also have some shifty plans in place that could be revealed when Gary stumbles into them.
Taking a stripped back thriller that plays its trade in sweaty tension is one thing, but I have to admit, setting it in Dublin during the movie’s titular year is a choice that works devastatingly well. Behind enemy lines movies are usually a great source of edge of your seat inducing filmmaking, but there’s something about the Troubles that gives it that extra burst of nail biting energy that makes me genuinely surprised that no one’s thought to do it before. Demange, who previously cut his teeth on the likes of Dead Set and Top Boy, certainly knows how to wring hard edged tauntness out of a situation, but with the backdrop of riots, political unrest and eerily deserted city streets to play with ’71 gives 100 percent.
While it’s true that the movie is more concerned about using the Troubles as a shroud to give the movie extra wallop than actually using it to explain or pick apart the nature of the infamous conflict, the filmmakers do take steps to dig into how complex and cutthroat everything seemed to be, especially at ground level as lashes occured daily on the cobbled streets. This comes primarily from our horribly unprepared lead character, Gary, who, like some of the audience, has absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on at any given moment and while his aim is simply to get to safety and get home, literally everyone around him has a dizzying array of plans, counter plans and divided allegiances that makes trusting anyone not just impossible, but extremely inadvisable.
Key to this, obviously, is the casting of Gary himself and Jack O’ Connell aquits himself beautifully by fully taking advantage of how scary things can be when things are violently kicking off around you and you literally have no idea what the fuck is going on. His extended confusion, fear and painful vulnerability are palpable through the screen as he stumbles from one bad situation to another.
The movie is wise not to tip fully over into action movie territory and keeps things nice and tight, but when violence does kick off, Demange ensures that it hits harder than a truck full of anvils that enhances the tension rather than burning it off. An early riot is genuinely terrifying as the full force of the public’s indignation spills over into something far more primal and a vicious execution comes out of nowhere that stuns you into shock that leads immediately into a dizzying chase through the back streets of Dublin. Elsewhere, a bomb blast suddenly rips through a scene, nailing an exclamation point that even though this is occuring as close as Dublin, thus could be the same kind of wreckage strewn battleground you could find anywhere in the world.
To aid O’Connell as he blunders through dangerous situation after dangerous situation, his shell shocked visage is given ample support by his supporting cast. First example, you know Gary is well and truly fucked simply because the people who are supposed to be trying to locate him and get him out are being played by Mission: Impossible 5’s Sean Harris and Peaky Blinders’ Paul Anderson and the fact that both these guys are into some shady deals with both the Loyalists and the Offical IRA isn’t surprising in the least considering the type of people they tend to play. Elsewhere the likes of Barry Keoghan and Halo’s Charlie Murphy crop up to further muddy the waters as a member of the Provisional IRA who is suffering a crisis of conscience or an initially sympathetic Catholic who helps tend to his wounds, respectively.
However, it’s with a throwaway comment that Demange gets his point across when one character bitterly announces “Posh cunts telling thick cunts to kill poor cunts. That’s the army for you. Its all a lie.” to a typically confused Gary (apologies for the language) and considering that the poor bastard has gone from a casualty, to an enemy, to a target and finally to a bargaining chip in the space of a mere few hours, it’s about time he really started listening.
Unbearably tense, utterly gripping and criminally under appreciated by audiences, ’71 proves to be something of a stellar year.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 