'71

’71 (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from www.freefall-productions.com)

2014 / UK / 99 minutes

“Posh cunts telling thick cunts to kill poor cunts- that’s the army for you.”

Director: Yann Demange / Screenplay: Gregory Burke / Director of Photography: Tat Radcliffe / Music: David Holmes / Production: Robin Gutch and Angus Lamont for Film 4 / Cast: Jack O’Connell (Gary Hook), Sam Reid (Lieutenant Armitage), Sean Harris (Captain Sandy Browning), Paul Anderson (Sergeant Leslie Lewis), David Wilmot (Boyle), Richard Dormer (Eamon), Charlie Murphy (Brigid), Killian Scott (James Quinn), Martin McCann (Paul Haggerty), Barry Keoghan (Sean), Jack Lowden (Private Thompson), Babou Ceesay (Corporal), Corey McKinley (Loyalist Child).

In 1971, young British Army recruit Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell) is sent to Northern Ireland. When Hook’s platoon is deployed to a volatile area of Belfast to assist the RUC with a house search, a protest against the British troops soon escalates into a riot. Pursuing a rifle stolen from a soldier knocked unconscious by a rock, Hook and Private Thompson (Jack Lowden) are left behind when the other soldiers and police move out and Thompson is shot dead by provisional IRA gunman Paul Haggerty (Martin McCann).

   Alone in the hostile streets, Hook hides until nightfall and disguises himself as a civilian but Haggerty and two other gunmen, James Quinn (Killian Scott) and Sean (Barry Keoghan), are still pursuing him. Hook eventually encounters a boy (Corey McKinley) related to local protestant leaders who offers to help him. Following the boy to a pub, Hook recognises Sergeant Lewis (Paul Anderson), an undercover MRF officer, and sees him giving the loyalist paramilitaries a bomb to use against the IRA.

   Realising who Hook is, Lewis leaves the pub to request further instructions from his superior, Captain Browning (Sean Harris). Hook steps outside to follow him when the Loyalists accidentally set off the bomb and blow up their own pub, killing everyone inside. Hook survives but due to his injuries, he is only able to stagger a short way down the street before falling unconscious.

   While Hook’s CO, the inexperienced Lieutenant Armitage (Sam Reid), clashes with Browning over how best to find the missing soldier (with Browning trying to keep ongoing MRF operations secret), the provisional IRA and the older, “Official” IRA elements both blame each other for the pub bombing, unaware it was really an accident.

   Meanwhile, Hook is found by Eamon (Richard Dormer) and his daughter, Brigid (Charlie Murphy) who take him back to their flat where Eamon, a former army medic, stitches his wounds. A Catholic distrusted by his own community for his past service in the British Army, Eamon contacts official IRA figure Boyle (David Wilmot) to try to resole the situation peacefully.

   Like the Loyalist paramilitaries, Boyle has an established relationship with the MRF and offers to help them get Hook back, unaware that Browning and Lewis are desperately trying to cover up their involvement in the pub bombing (that only Hook witnessed). In exchange, Boyle asks Browning to do something about the younger, provisional IRA members like Quinn, who he has now all but completely lost control of. With the MRF and the provisonals both closing in on Eamon’s flat, Hook decides to leave and take his chances alone again…

   The debut feature from French Algerian director Yann Demange, ’71 was actually largely shot in northern England (Blackburn, Liverpool and Leeds) as Belfast had changed too much since the time of the film’s setting. Written by Scottish “Accidental” playwright Gregory Burke (despite his theatre success, he only ever wanted to write films), the picture combines documentary- style realism (including actual footage from the era) with more stylised cinematography once darkness falls.

   The story mostly takes place over just a few hours and it’s no accident that the film’s night look is very reminiscent of the nearly all nocturnal, time- limited urban urgency of The Warriors (1979) and Escape from New York (1981), with campfires and cars burning in the streets and danger round every corner. The action is also exceptionally well- staged and shot, which, along with all the period detail and recent historical background, makes everything almost a bit too real.

   Burke deliberately set the story near the beginning of the modern conflict when everything was at its most chaotic. The split among the Republican paramilitaries, the law unto themselves MRF squad, the still very mixed Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods and the lack of proper military bases for the British troops (at the time, they hadn’t expected to be there long) as well as the character of Eamon (who is of an age to have had friends on both sides but is no longer accepted by either) all serve to illustrate this.

   As great as the supporting cast are, O’Connell’s intense, terrified performance is the centrepiece of the film. Hook and the other recruits are told at the start that they’re not leaving the UK and Northern Ireland is not technically even a foreign deployment but Belfast feels virtually alien to the young Private. In one scene, Hook tells the Loyalist boy who finds him he doesn’t know if he’s Protestant or Catholic (even in 1971, such things no longer mattered much in England) to which the boy responds “I’ve fucking heard it all now”!

   Unlike a lot of other films and books on “The Troubles” (both fiction and non- fiction), ’71 isn’t interested in explicitly supporting or condemning either side and Hook encounters good and bad people on both. As always when dealing with such sensitive material still in living memory though, the film wound up a lot of the usual suspects who still believe their lot were always in the right and the other lot never were, the conflict having now turned into one over who gets to write its history.