[Another of the number of past-their-sell-by-date busts languishing in this blog's drafts folder, this time of a movie plot that proves you don't need big budgets or trick Hollywood endings to write compelling thrillers.]
'71 (2014) is a British recent history action drama starring Jack O'Connell, Sean Harris, David Wilmot, Richard Dormer and Paul Anderson, directed by Yann Demange.
In the end, rookie private, Jack O'Connell is rescued from the hands of murderous republican gunmen by the British Army unit that accidentally left him behind during a riot on the streets of Belfast.
Fresh out of boot camp, on his first day of deployment on the streets of Belfast, at the height of Northern Ireland's "Troubles", O'Connell finds himself abandoned by his unit, along with another soldier, as they try to recover rifles snatched by a mob of republican sympathisers during a street riot following an arrest operation that quickly escalated out of control.
O'Connell takes flight when the soldier with him is shot in the face at point blank range by a pair of gunmen who appear out of the crowd.
Chased through the back streets and alleys, O'Connell eventually gives his pursuers the slip by sheltering in a little used outhouse.
Returning to the body of the dead soldier, the gunmen are rebuked by republican king-pin, David Wilmot, for carrying out the shooting. Despite this, and against Wilmot's specific instructions, their dissident gang leader (Killian Scott), decides they should continue to hunt O'Connell.
Under cover of darkness, O'Connell ventures out, covering his uniform with a knitted pullover, stolen from a washing line.
Lost in the unfamiliar streets, O'Connell runs into a young masked loyalist petrol bomber, but is initially reluctant to accept the boy's offer to lead him back to his barracks.
On the way, though, the boy and O'Connell call at a loyalist bar, interrupting a British Military Intelligence officer, Paul Anderson, as he briefs a pair of would-be loyalist bombers.
Telling O'Connell to wait for him at the bar, Anderson leaves to consult with his senior colleague, Sean Harris, waiting in a nearby car.
But, before Anderson has a chance to return for O'Connell, the bar is blown to bits by the hapless bombers, O'Connell only surviving after momentarily stepping outside to see where Anderson had disappeared to.
Dazed and confused, the injured O'Connell staggers through the streets, before collapsing against a wall, in which state he is found by a young woman and her father, Richard Dormer.
Mistaking him for an injured republican, Dormer carries O'Connell to the flat he shares with his daughter in a republican stronghold, where, realising their perilous error, the pair patch up O'Connell's wound, before Dormer seeks help from Wilmot in smuggling him to safety.
The bombing of the loyalist bar, however, has only intensified the factional struggle between Wilmot and the dissident leader, each of whom blames the other for the attack, leading both to decide that the other must die. And when Wilmot visits Dormer's home to see O'Connell for himself, he unwittingly leads the dissidents to the location of their quary.
Spooked, after Wilmot leaves, by an overheard argument between Dormer and his daughter, O'Connell slips out, unseen, only just before the dissident republicans force their way into the flat and demand to know what business Wilmot has there.
With a gun pointed at the head of her father, Dormer's daughter breaks down, revealing that Wilmot was there to help return O'Connell to his unit. But finding O'Connell gone, the dissidents decide to search the vicinity, leaving a single gunman behind to watch Dormer and his daughter while waiting for Wilmot's return.
Having struck a deal to help Harris and Anderson recover O'Connell in exchange for their murdering the dissident who has been challenging his authority, Wimlot leads the Intelligence officers and a contingent of soldiers from O'Connell's unit, to Dormer's flat, where they shoot their way past the waiting gunman, only to find O'Connell gone. But Wilmot claims that if the dissidents have O'Connell, he knows where they will have taken him.
The dissidents have indeed captured O'Connell, despite him killing one of his pursuers, the murderer of the soldier earlier that day, and take him to a nearby derelict bar, where the leader urges a teenager who had failed to shoot the cornered O'Connell during the original pursuit, to execute their unarmed captive.
Again the boy hesitates, giving Wilmot enough time to lead the British soldiers to the bar, which they storm, allowing Anderson to shoot the teen while Harris goes after the fleeing dissident leader.
Harris then betrays Wilmot by revealing the deal he made for the dissident leader's murder, before allowing him to escape in return for the dissidents dispatching Wilmot on behalf of the British.
And in a second betrayal, having saved O'Connell from execution, Anderson then attempts to strangle him, before he himself is shot by the teenager, who Anderson failed to finish off, only for the teenager to be then shot by O'Connell's squad leader, who happened upon Anderson as he attempted to finish off O'Connell.
An invalided O'Connell is discharged from the army under a cloud, after his senior commanding officer dismisses his and his squad leader's accusations against Anderson.
Disillusioned, O'Connell returns to the mainland to collect a young boy he refers to as "our Darren" from a secure children's home, he himself had spent time in.
The pair are seen riding off into the sunset on a coach.
Despite a plot that includes a few too many improbable coincidences, with his first big-screen feature outing, Demange manages a white-knuckle ride of tension and emotion, that grabs its audience from the get-go (right up until the somewhat laboured and slightly corny ending) and puts recent American offerings, in the same genre, with ten times the budget, to shame. (Indeed, since this bust was first penned, O'Connell has gone on to star as the lead in one such production, to much less effect.) Look and learn, Hollywood. Look and learn.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'71_(film)
