Grade: A+

Verdict: Painfully raw docudrama puts you in the middle of Northern Ireland's infamous 'Bloody Sunday'

Details: Directed by Paul Greengrass. Featuring James Nesbitt, Allan Gildea, and Gerard Crossan. Rated R for violence and language. 107 minutes. Limited release

Rate it: Write your own review

Review:

Thirty years ago, in a small town in Northern Ireland, English paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of Catholics marching peacefully for civil rights, killing 13 and wounding more. Many such things have happened around the world in the intervening years, but "Bloody Sunday" makes Jan. 30, 1972, as immediate as a punch in the face.

Writer-director Paul Greengrass creates the illusion that he restaged the day's events in their entirety, on the town's streets and in back rooms concurrently, then sent camera teams out to capture it all as it happened. The handheld cameras jostle through crowds precariously, chase after running soldiers and move in tight for whispered conversations. The film's abrupt editing increases our anxiety.

If the guns positioned along the city's rooftops don't set you on edge, the constant noise will: Telephones are ringing ceaselessly, harried conversations overlap, and the radio burbles with menace. As Ivan Cooper, the MLK-emulator who wants to lead a peaceful march through town, makes his morning rounds to rally supporters, the joyless determination on his face calls to mind another Cooper, who saw his own town turn unfriendly in the hours before "High Noon." (The civil rights leader is played by James Nesbitt, whom U.S. viewers may remember from "Waking Ned Divine," and who heads up a cast whose unfamiliarity to Americans assists the illusion that we're experiencing the event itself.)

Cooper knows there's a serious risk of conflict, but he also believes that if he caves in to the government's prohibition against demonstrations, there's no hope of fair treatment for the Catholics in his region.

At the same time, there are a few voices in the military camp who argue against lining the streets with soldiers. Once the guns are there, these men know, they will be used.

And they are used, in an ungory but incredibly shocking outburst of violence -- blood is shed in "Bloody Sunday," but it's shown in muted hues from a distance, making the killings seem even more callous. It isn't quite clear what inspires the first shot, but what follows is plain as day: Soldiers shooting unarmed protesters who are already lying motionless, priests waving handkerchiefs in surrender, unheeded. In the rush for justification after the shooting stops, a lonely dissenting soldier is bullied into accepting the party line -- that the wounded were not "civilians" but "terrorists."

Greengrass has planted conventional human interest in his story, but current events have made that unnecessary. In a United States where anti-war activists can find it hard to get on an airplane, and people are searched because their names sound too similar to those of suspected malcontents, many audience members will find it easy to identify with citizens whose disagreement with the government is seen as a potential violent threat.

Whether it resonates with today's headlines or not, "Bloody Sunday" is a stunning piece of filmmaking, a scary and moving document that eloquently traces a generation of woes back to a few irreversible decisions.

— John DeFore, Special to the Austin American-Statesman