Little publicised and only distributed on a limited release, director Yann Demange’s ’71 is a rough gem of an indie film with a whole lot more credibility than the majority of Hollywood’s output to-date in 2014. As directorial debuts go, it’s a pretty impressive first movie and it acts as a solid introduction to a few potentially rising stars, especially in the case of Jack O’Connell, who took on the lead role with the kind of delivery that’s worthy of an Oscar nomination in the very least.
’71 premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2014, where it picked up a lot of critical acclaim, and our review only echoes the positive reaction for the movie. It had a limited distribution release date on the 10th October 2014 in the UK, and our recommendation is to hunt down a cinema that’s showing the movie, because it’s one of this year’s must see films. If you don’t get a chance to see the film at the cinema, then you should definitely keep an eye out for the DVD, Blu-ray and digital download releases.
The storyline is set in 1971, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland as Gary Hook, a young army soldier, gets stationed in Belfast out of the blue, leaving Darren, who you sort of assume to be his orphaned younger brother, back home in Yorkshire. His first day on the jobs sees his equally inexperienced commander sending him and a relatively small team of soldiers in to assist the local police in a house search deep in IRA territory on Falls Road.
If things aren’t tense enough, they ramped up to maximum when Gary finds himself cut off from the rest of the unit as a riot starts to build around them. When the unit retreats under a barrage of stones and increasing hostility, he finds himself left on the street and running for his life with a young gang of IRA gunman hot on his trail.
It makes for a dramatic and bloody thriller of a film, with a lot of pace and a fair few twisting story arcs interweaving their way to the ferocious climax of the story. It conjures up the historical setting to perfection and goes a long way to wrap up some of the issues that made the Troubles so terrifying for anyone wrapped up in them at the time.
It’s got a lot of pace and purpose, repeatedly building to fever pitch moments of intensity and then winding it down to quieter moments of survival fear.This is added to with some to by some of the best cinematography we’ve seen all year as every as the film manages to make you file like you’ve literally been transported through time and space to Falls Road of the early seventies, using impressive visual styling to conjure up that dated TV news look, mixed with a very realistic delivery.
For a low budget indie movie, it manages to to include some epic special effects with at least one frighteneingly realistic explosion and a lot of well constructed blood injury effects. However, if we’re being picky, there’s one moment in the film that fails to deliver on the high standards of realism that the majority hits, as the effects team struggle with a particular body effect section that just looks a bit too much like a rag doll.
That aside, the film is largely faultless. There isn’t a second of fat built into the progression of the plot and the cast are ridiculously believable. O’Connell takes on the central role with a lot of skill and he’s supported by the likes of Sean Harris (Macbeth (2015)), Killian Scott, Corey McKinley, Sam Hazeldine, Charlie Murphy, Barry Keoghan and Martin McCann, who put in stand out performances that are worthy of their own award nominations.
A lot of the credit for ’71 has got to go to director Yann Demange, who has managed to put together one of the year’s surprise movie releases. It draws you in quickly, turns your concepts of the Troubles upside down and provides an insightful window into the front line reality of war with a very close-to-home environment to lay it all out on.
’71 film review: 4.8/5
