This film is better than I remembered. It centers around the falsely accused 'Guildford Four' and their fifteen years of false imprisonment. The movie starts, literally, with a bang as pub is blown up in England. It's the work of the IRA and the movie works hard to illustrate the explosive situation that existed in Northern Ireland and England at the time.
Daniel Day-Lewis stars as a young man whose foolishness is only exceeded by his anger at his father. In a classic wrong place/wrong time situation, he becomes accused of being the ringleader of the group that blew up the pub. His father follows him to England to try and help him, only to be rounded up and accused of being part of the same circle.
Two things struck me from this film. Why isn't Day-Lewis a bigger star? His filmography is impressive. He's taken very difficult roles and done amazing things with them. The ladies at work assure me that he's quite sexy. So what happened?
The other thing that struck me was the depth of paternal love that Pete Postlethwaite portrays to his very difficult son. Film and TV fathers are usually depicted as overgrown children, heartless jerks or clueless idiots. Seldom are they shown as loving and dedicated.
This film is quite good. The echoes to our current war against terrorists are important and more timely than when the film was actually made. Quite good.
2 comments:
I love this film. I think I like it better with each viewing. DDL is not such a big star because he doesn't WANT to be. Not a whore for celebrity like so many others. I can respect that but enjoy watching him so much. Have you seen him in A ROOM WITH A VIEW? Hardly recognizable? MY LEFT FOOD - amazing and quite frankly the only good thing about GANGS OF NEW YORK was his amazingly creepy and diabolical portrayal of the Butcher.
Actually, I haven't seen any of those films. Maybe 'My Left Foot' but not for a very long time at least. But I'll put them on the list.
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