Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Rick Pan I've been getting overall information from IMDb for quite a while. Couple of days ago, I accidentally read a list called 'Best Irish movies'. By double checking, or triple checking or even more maybe, because I was too upset to count and I couldn't find this film, which made me terribly upset about till now. For those who haven't see this film, you need to see this film before you want to make any comment on Irish films. Secondly, Paul Greengrass has set up a new standard of handy cam producing. I believe many late comers learned a lot from him. It's such a brilliant work. All these intense scenarios, conflicts and faces built in this film are not just impressive, I would say it's unforgettable. Sometimes, people move on because life told them to. But sometimes, people cried and fought because no more they can hold on to. This film, is definitely & absolutely the BEST Irish film, EVER.

paul2001sw-1 The partition of Ireland, though contested, is defensible; the subsequent neglect by the British government of the rights of northern Catholics is not. Nor is the shooting, on what has been termed "Bloody Sunday", of unarmed protesters objecting to the absence of these rights. Moreover, these events disastrously but understandably strengthened the roots that the I.R.A. was able to put down in the Catholic community. An initial enquiry vindicated the soldiers; but many felt this a whitewash, and Paul Greengrass's film shows an alternative version of events, based on extensive research. What we see, messily and unmelodramatically, is not a clean fight between good and evil - the demonstration was certainly hostile and not entirely peaceable - but a grotesque tragedy resulting from a self-fulfilling belief on the part of the army that they were already at war. The verdict might be incompetence rather than murder; but when the incompetence is itself premeditated, the difference is a fine one. To make a film effectively endorsing one of Irisah Republicanism's more potent claims was a brave move by I.T.V.; but a more recent enquiry has largely confirmed its accuracy.

Jackson Booth-Millard Before The Bourne Supremacy, director Paul Greengrass made this historical drama based on a non-fiction book. Basically this is a documentary style film showing the events on January 30th, 1972, where a protest march through Londonderry for civil rights led by activist MP Ivan Cooper (BAFTA TV Award nominated James Nesbitt) turns into a disaster. I think it is when marchers start pelting the Parachute Regiment that they begin shooting at them, and they killed thirteen people, and wounded fourteen more. You see the action from both sides of the drama, from the protesters' point of view, and the members of the Regiment, including Major General Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith) and Brigadier MacLellan (Nicholas Farrell). Also starring Gerard McSorley as Chief Supt. Lagan, Kathy Kiera Clarke as Frances, Allan Gildea as Kevin McCorry, Gerard Crossan as Eamonn McCann and Mary Moulds as Bernadette Devlin. The only off-putting thing about this film is the frequent fades to black and no sound pauses going through the action, but besides this, a pretty powerful and provocative film. It won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Photography and Lighting, and it was nominated for Best Editing, Best Single Drama and Best Sound. Very good!

Darren Certainly, anything dealing with "The Troubles" of Northern Ireland will quickly create a great divide between opposing viewpoints, and obviously 'Bloody Sunday' is no exception. For the record, I am no fan of the IRA. On the other hand I am no fan of sending an attacking force into a civil disturbance as police support. History is replete with evidence that this is simply a bad idea and will likely lead to an atrocity. For this I heap far more blame at the feet of British politicians who move their army around like chess pieces rather than at the feet of the army itself. And I believe Paul Greengrass handles this as such. Brigadier Maclellan is portrayed as a thoroughly professional soldier who is very conscientious about handling the march with minimal force yet finds this insurmountable upon the arrival of Major General Ford, who seems determined to have his Paras show those pesky Republicans who's boss. The Paras themselves are an elite attacking unit. They are trained to jump from planes and kill with maximum effect, not to make sure peace marchers remain peaceful. They don't want to be there any more than the Irish Catholics want them to be there. They're not policemen. They are frustrated and angry, but they are the ones with guns, Queen and country behind them. And when told to move in, they move in with a vengeance. Again, sending an assault force into a civil insurrection is just a bad idea. The inquest that followed may have been incomplete, but with all due respect to the Parachute Regiment in an unenviable situation, it was a massacre regardless of who fired first (and again Paul Greengrass does not take sides here and make it obvious where the first shot came from). There is a huge difference between understanding why something happened and attempting to justify it.That said, Paul Greengrass's near pathological attention to detail ceases to amaze me after multiple viewings. Having long been a student of the army in Northern Ireland, there is no fault to be found in reference to the soldiers. The flak jackets worn beneath old pattern Para smocks, the mix of maroon berets and para helmets, the wood stocks of the rifles rather than the later plastic. Paul Greengrass apparently hired ex-servicemen who had done tours in Northern Ireland, thus eliminating the need to train the cinematic soldiers to look like real soldiers. They knew the lingo, they knew how to hold their weapons, they knew how to assault. In fact, Simon Mann, the actor who plays the Para commanding officer, was once in the British Special Air Service (SAS) until 1985, and in 2004 was arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Many of the scenes are carbon copies of actual incidents seen in archival footage of the actual march. If you are familiar with such footage, you begin to forget you're watching a recreation. It is a dark and cold film. It is gray and gritty. There is no dramatic score. The camera-work is often shaky. Dialogue is sometimes hard to understand. What is going on is sometimes confusing. And you know what? Life is like that sometimes, and that's what makes this film so powerful and brutally realistic.