Film Review: '71 (2015)

If you want to make a decent thriller these days, your first step to success is to make sure your budget is low. The lower the better. A budget that wouldn't pay for Robert Downey Jr's per diem on The Avengers: Age of Ultron is ideal. Minuscule funding means your film can't rely on extravagant action set pieces or big stars like, uh, Robert Downey Jr. Instead of those two crutches, your film will have to focus on character and plot, on the writing, in other words. '71 is a beautiful example of this.

The story is set in Belfast in, of course, 1971. The Troubles have reached a full, rolling boil, and a raw group of Brit soldiers have been sent out into a Catholic area to provide protection for a group of RUC officers (the Protestant-dominated police force loathed by Catholics) who are conducting a raid on a house. A riot ensues, one soldier is killed and another, Pvt. Gary Hook, becomes separated from his platoon and must go on the run through enemy territory. Hook sticks out like a sore thumb thanks to his accent and uniform, and nothing has prepared him for this kind of situation. The action takes place over one night, and Hook becomes the prize quarry for two different IRA groups, a trio of ruthless MI5 men, and his own platoon.

The hunt for Hook is deftly handled. The different groups looking for him have motives that aren't immediately apparent, and the double-crosses and deaths soon begin to mount. The different narrative strands are kept coherent, and thanks to the low budget, there's no time wasted on pointless relationships or redundant background information. In short, the strength of '71 lies in the script's efficiency and attention to detail. One standout example of this is our brief intro to Hook. Before he arrives in Northern Ireland we learn (or infer) from only a few brief scenes that Hook is from a poor background, has no girlfriend, and his only relative is his young brother who's living in an orphanage. This intro gives us a rooting interest in Hook, but it stops well short of an assault on our tear ducts, which a fatter, lazier film might have done. Even minor characters are given a polish that makes them more than predictable storytelling pawns. The platoon's commander is initially presented as a bit of an ineffectual, upper-class twit, but at the end he's got more backbone and more of our sympathy. And what might be the most memorable character is a Protestant boy, who can't be older than ten, who has been transformed by the Troubles into a menacing, pint-sized Liam Neeson.

What gives the film a lot of its tension is that Hook is played by a relative unknown. Put a big star in this role and the audience knows he's going to survive until the end. Stick a nobody in the role and now we're not so sure. Also, I wonder if calling the soldier Hook isn't an ironic nod to the Pvt. Hook in Zulu? The latter film is about heroic empire-building, while this one is about an empire falling apart. And that brings us back to the budget. A Marvel-sized payroll would have given us superfluous characters, action scenes that went on too long, and preening superstars. A low budget, like living on a low income, forces filmmakers into smart and creative choices. They can't paper over plot holes with money. The French film industry has been cranking out smart action-thrillers like '71 for years, and I can only wish there were filmmakers doing the same.

Book Review: In the Morning I'll Be Gone (2014) by Adrian McKinty

This is the final entry in Adrian McKinty's Troubles trilogy featuring Sean Duffy, a police detective working in Northern Ireland during the early 1980s. All three of the novels fall into the noir category, but this latest one has a locked room puzzle at its core that, on the surface, seems like a poor fit for noir crime fiction. Locked room puzzles were a staple during the 1920s and '30s, the so-called golden age of detective fiction, but locked room puzzles also went hand in hand with twee settings, characters with hyphenated names who drank pink gin, and detectives who were usually gifted and eccentric amateurs. Duffy is a professional copper with a taste for illegal drugs, booze, and rock 'n roll. So what on Earth is a locked room puzzle doing in a noir crime novel and with no dapper Belgian detective on hand to solve it? I'd suggest it's because McKinty is slyly suggesting that the Troubles were the locked room puzzle of post-war British politics.

The action kicks off with the famous mass escape of IRA prisoners from N.I.'s Maze prison. One of the escapees is a childhood friend of Duffy's named Dermot McCann. MI5 drafts Duffy into the hunt for McCann in the faint hope that Duffy's connections to the McCann family might produce a clue. Duffy hits a brick wall with the ultra-Republican McCann clan until he meets Dermot's ex-mother-in-law. She tells him that if he can solve the mystery surrounding the apparently accidental death of her daughter some three years previously, she might point him towards Dermot. The girl was found dead with a broken neck inside the family's pub, the doors all locked from the inside and no sign of any secret entrances. Duffy solves the puzzle and then the race is on to stop McCann before he can set off a bomb in Brighton.

This is easily the best of the Duffy books. The two previous novels, The Cold, Cold Ground and I Hear the Sirens in the Street, were full of sharp prose, black humor, and superb descriptions of the grim social and physical environment of Northern Ireland during the Troubles. This novel has all of those qualities but also a stronger, smoother plot and fewer obscure cultural references. The locked room puzzle at the heart of the story is a gem; there's no trickery to it, all the clues are out in the open, you just have to put the pieces together. The story then moves seamlessly into thriller mode and this final section is as well done as the puzzle portion of the novel.

What stands out in this series is the passion with which McKinty writes about his birthplace. He's unsparing in his depiction of the sectarian prejudices and cruelties that keep the tear gas canisters flying and the bombs bursting, but he never forgets to show that underneath all that there's a common humanity that shines out at the oddest moments; for example, when Duffy goes to question Dermot's mother her visceral loathing for him (he's a Catholic working for the largely Protestant RUC) doesn't stop her from offering him tea and sweets. And in another scene Duffy's neighbour won't let him leave for an important interview until she's personally combed his hair to her satisfaction. It would seem that the biggest locked room puzzle is trying to figure out how such murderous hatred consumed people who would otherwise be mostly concerned with fishing, pubs and who is to play Mother when the tea's ready.

Film Review: The Jokers (1967)

I didn't think I'd ever see this film again. It used to crop up on TV from time to time in the early 1970s, but after that it seemed to disappear completely, and a check on Amazon and eBay shows that it's not available in any kind of format. This is effectively a lost film; although I think it might also be called an unofficially banned film. Why would it be banned? Not because of violence or sex or politics, but due to the plot.

This is a heist movie about two brothers, played by Oliver Reed and Michael Crawford, who decide to steal the crown jewels just for the hell of it.  That's the steak part of the film. The sizzle portion is a dryly comic look at Swinging London. The brothers are members of the upper classes, their lives a series of balls and coming out parties and nights at champagne-soaked nightclubs. As much as the brothers enjoy their lifestyle and position, they are also apart from it; they see the pretensions and silliness of their peers and can't resist taking a poke at them. What better way to infuriate the establishment than to filch the Queen's favourite bits of jewelery? And the best part is that they intend to return the loot after one week. They're only in it for the glory, just like any other self-respecting, upper-class English amateur adventurers.

The brothers' plan to get the jewels from the Tower of London involves mounting a bombing campaign aimed at London landmarks. The bombs are real but they always give the bomb squad enough warning to get to the bombs in plenty of time. Once they've established a pattern, they put a bomb in the jewel room of the Tower and masquerade as two members of the bomb squad. The jewels are stolen, but, as is always the case in heist films, there are complications.

In 1967 a bombing campaign in central London conducted in the name of fun and social criticism seemed like an amusing plot device. The Troubles in Northern Ireland kicked off a short time later, and after that bombs didn't seem so funny anymore. And the UK wasn't the only place that bombs began to go off in: Spain, Italy and a host of other countries were soon dealing with lethal and determined bombing campaigns. That was one reason to bury The Jokers. The other reason is that the plan used in the film might actually work in the real world. I also wonder if every time the film was shown on TV it didn't give rise to a flurry of phony bomb threats. In sum, The Jokers ended up being too mischievous for its own good.

Explosives issues aside, The Jokers holds up pretty well. The story is clever, there are loads of  familiar English character actors doing great work, and Crawford and Reed make a charismatic team. Reed is especially good, and his performance is another reminder that a talent that big should never have been wasted on booze. If you want to watch this film you'll have to take the piratical download route.

Book Review: The Cold Cold Ground (2012) by Adrian McKinty

The fact that The Cold Cold Ground is, for the most part, a police procedural shouldn't be cause for comment except that no one else, as far as I know, has had the bright idea to set a procedural during the Troubles, Northern Ireland's long-running sectarian conflict. A Troubles-set procedural seems like an obvious and rich source for story ideas, so it's a bit odd that no one's done it until now. I'll take a guess that there's still so much residual animosity and bitterness about the Troubles floating around the British Isles that any attempt to fictionalize the subject guarantees a certain amount of unpleasant blowback for the author. If there is any in this case, at least the critics can't complain that the writer's not up to the job.

The novel kicks off with the discovery of a man's mutilated body in a junked car. At first it looks like yet another killing related to the Troubles, but it rapidly emerges that this might be the work of a serial killer targeting homosexuals. Detective Sean Duffy is the lead investigator and he soon finds that the IRA may be involved, and that a woman found hanged in an apparent suicide may also be part of the mystery. This all plays out against the background of Catholic Belfast reaching the boiling point as the IRA  hunger strikers in Maze Prison begin to die. 

McKinty has crafted a novel that works beautifully as a procedural and as a period piece (the story's set in 1981) capturing the look and mood of a region with one foot in a civil war and the other on a banana peel. The procedural aspect of the novel is exceptional. Duffy is shown to be very much part of a team. His fellow officers aren't just there to pass on important bits of plot information at key moments, they also get to be clever, add commentary, and crack wise. Duffy clearly feels comfortable working with this group and relies on them, despite the fact that he's a Catholic in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a predominantly Protestant organization despised by Catholics. The scenes of Duffy with his fellow cops are probably the strongest elements in the novel. The final sections of the story have Duffy becoming more of a lone wolf, and they work well in giving the story a thrillerish finale, but I found myself wishing that the procedural aspects had kept going to the end. Also, some of the players who come into the story towards the end are rather high up the political food chain, and that moves things well beyond a police procedural.  The transition is a bit jarring. That aside, the mystery at the heart of the story is satisfying and cleverly thought out.

McKinty brings the Belfast of 1981 alive with short, sharp descriptions of shattered streets, grandiose sectarian graffitti, menacing British firepower in the air and on the ground, and a populace that's always keyed up to either fight, flee or heap abuse on the police. The main reason I can believe that McKinty's descriptions are bang on is that they match up perfectly with an excellent memoir about the Troubles by Malachi O'Doherty called The Telling Year: Belfast 1972 (I'm pretty sure this was the book) that I read a few years ago. I think what McKinty captures best is the all-encompassing feeling of dread and tension that people, especially the police, lived with. Northern Ireland, as seen through Duffy's eyes, is a minefield of actual and theoretical dangers, any one which can be triggered by a wrong step, a wrong turn or a wrong word. It's an intensely dispiriting world (even the weather's crap) and McKinty makes it feel very, very real.

Sean Duffy is a strong and entertaining protagonist. He's smart, funny and believable as a cop. Far too many fictional cops moan and groan about their jobs. Duffy seems to like what he's doing and is dead keen on getting results. He's not a jaded or beaten down cop (there are far too many of those), he's not too cynical, and he's human enough to indulge in the odd bit of very petty corruption. Duffy's keenly aware that he's a fish out of water as both a university-educated policeman and as a Catholic in the RUC. The dichotomies in Duffy's life seem to find symbolic expression in an unexpected event that takes place in a public washroom. It's an odd and audacious scene that begs for some kind of follow-up, which, I suspect, will come in the next Duffy novel.

I have a minor complaint about Duffy that really qualifies as more of a pet peeve: we're forced to learn far too much about his musical tastes. Lately it seems to me that every mystery writer has to make a point of telling us what their detective likes to listen to. In the past few years I've read mysteries by Ken Bruen, Massimo Carlotto, and Gianfranco Carofiglio in which their detectives musical choices are regularly mentioned. It's a pedestrian way to build a character, and the worst part is that these Desert Island Discs moments always (for me) break down the fourth wall. I always feel I'm being buttonholed by the author for a bit of a natter about his favourite songs and artists. I blame Elmore Leonard. He introduced the idea of characters referencing their choices in music and movies, and after that the genie was out of the bottle. One of these days I'd like to see a mystery writer give us a brilliant detective with really horrible taste in music. How about a sleuth who only listens to ABBA and Slim Whitman? I shall now stable my hobby horse.

I've read four other crime novels by Adrian McKinty and The Cold Cold Ground is jostling for the number one position on my list of favourites. It has the tension, fast pace and intrigue you expect from any mystery/thriller, but it also manages to evoke a time and place that's beginning to fade into the past. And in Sean Duffy we have a character who is not only compelling, but, I'm guessing, is going to be changing in upcoming novels. One final aside: is there a more perfect example of Brit/Irish understatement than calling a low-grade civil war the Troubles? If it had been even more bloody would it have been called A Spot Of Bother?