|
Bleak Jim Sheridan flick. Entirely forgettable, save for very
tender, awkward moments between Daniel Day Lewis as an IRA
prisoner/boxer released after 14 years in prison and Emily Watson
as his former teen sweetheart. She is married to another
imprisoned IRA man, so their union must be clandestine and
furtive, almost a reversion to younger days (to mess with a
married prisoner's wife on the outside can get you two bullets in
the kneecaps, or one to the head). But they have aged and the
moments are genuine and touching. Sheridan wraps modern Irish
politics around the romance, but everything is given short
shrift, and the lonely, desperate look of Northern Ireland
becomes the focus of the film. Languishing for eternity on the
relationship, the film then jerks at top speed to a convenient
and unconvincing finish. Niner says, don't bother, and for a
better film on the genre, get Sheridan's "In The Name of the
Father" (which is by no means great, but superior to this)
or last year's brilliant "Some Mother's Son" with Helen
Mirren. |
