'71

Film doesn't tell much about our protagonist. The gist of it is that he is a good guy. We follow him through the boot camp montage, then through bonding with his wee bruv montage, and following his unit deployment to Belfast all hell breaks loose. It might be done on purpose - to give the impression of murkiness of this conflict - but the film lost me at this point. Very confusing story; I had trouble understanding who is on whose side. Oh and shaky-cam action - does anyone even like that?

Tense and suspenseful, The film quickly established some background about the characters, so that when they reacted in the way that they did it felt very believable. A strong central performance. The political/social context of such 'confusion' meant the outcome was never a given.

With all the talk about the cost of war elsewhere this one really hurts. And it's done as an After Hours-style thriller, with all the nightmarish ambiguities that implies. I'm quite shaken.

A gritty, relentlessly tense gem that keeps Jack O'Connell at the top of that "rising star" pile. His performance here is dark and desperate, and the atmosphere and setting are convincingly ominous and ambiguous, fraught with fear.

Demange's film, spiked by an all-stops-out O'Connell, makes politics unnervingly personal.

"The Troubles" come alive in '71. You follow a young British soldier to N. Ireland and watch as he experiences the tension and unrest occurring in Belfast between Catholics and Protestants. His unit goes out on a raid and he is quickly separated from them during a riot. He then goes on the run as PIRA members attempt to track him down. He also comes across violent Protestant groups and those caught up in the violence as he tries to get back to his barracks. The movie is exciting and tense!

A couple of great, high intensity scenes. Too bad some shots are needlessly drawn-out, ruining the pace of the film. Worth a watch though. Hadn't seen a film about the troubles before so this was a welcome topic.

Nice debut from Demange as he takes on a complex political situation from the height of The Troubles in '71. He refrains from taking side in the conflict and focuses everything on the humanity of the story and his one guy, Gary Hook. O'Connell is great in that role and contributes greatly to make this a physically intense experience. Reminds me of Greengrass' pictures where the handheld camera style can get slightly annoying, I also wish he could offer more insight in to the difficult situation.

If you don't think the storyline is utter bollocks then you're a feckin eejit

Well made, but there just wasn't much to it.

Ken Loach meets Apocalypto in a contemporary tale of civil war. Don't miss.

I didn't know a lot about this time in British history, and I still don't after seeing this film. It's not a history lesson; it just drops you and the main character in the middle of it. And a most of it was pretty effective - lots of tense, exciting sequences that highlight what a scary and angry time it was. Unfortunately, the scenes in between weren't as interesting. It's a well-directed film featuring a solid performance from Jack O'Connell, and I recommend giving it a try.

Throughout the majority of the film there was a palpable sense of hopelessness, hostility and dead-lock, with suspense playing a prominent role in achieving that. What the film also excelled in was the gut-wrenching empathy toward the people drawn into the conflict - whether innocent or made an article to one party or another - with a few moments showing the brutality, cruelty, unfairness and silliness of war. Can be hard to follow all the different fractions if you're unfamiliar with the matter

Very well executed thriller that delivers a lot more than it might promise to. Shaky-cam for once works, and in the early chase scene works spectacularly well, and the brutality, complexity, fear and confusion of the troubles are portrayed in a gripping manner. Disappointingly it also contains a fair few plot cliches, but definitely worth a go.

A good natured British soldier is tossed through a meat-grinder and endures an unbelievable amount of horrible coincidences as a way of illustrating how fucked up the streets of Belfast were in 1971. Sometimes the action is exciting, but one gets the impression the soldier is merely a sacrificial lamb, and the surrounding conflict is merely a metaphor for "violence begets violence" and "think about the children". Not a horrible message film, but a little too on the nose for my tastes.

Brilliant film! Tension almost from the start and all the way throughout. Jack O'Connell is better in this one than that other one.

Well made movie, but nothing particularly special.

A tense story about boys playing at men and men playing at war. Not to be missed.

awww, shaky-cam is still hanging around, how cute.

Most Americans know next to nothing about The Troubles and "'71" doesn't do a hell of a lot of hand holding, but paints the conflict in broad strokes. Importantly, "'71" is quite effective at showing the kind of crazy that was going on in Ireland during the time, not a lot of movies have done that before. I had a hard time in figuring out what exactly was going on, who was on what side, but maybe that's the point. It's a decent movie, not a whole lot more.

Cheesy book-ends and a slightly muddled anti-war message but it's an alright action/thriller. "posh cunts telling thick cunts to kill poor cunts" indeed.

Pretty intense from the get go, but a few overly long sequences, and a bit confusing script made this movie fall short of becoming really interesting. - Good

This is a tense, well-done, moderately satisfying film. If you think you've experienced the shakiest of shaky-cam cinematography, you are in for a doozy with '71. It worked for some, and that's well enough, but I've always maintained that overtly shaky camerawork serves as more of a distraction than anything else. That said, the film digs in by the middle mark and the atmosphere benefits from it.

Demange is concerned with blurring lines. Whether it be between fantasy and reality or them and us; '71 highlights and redefines the sense of hierarchy and otherness in war, whilst creating one of the most consistently tense thrillers in recent memory. Jack O'Connell shows that not only can he do the brutal psychology that was displayed in Starred Up, but that he can convey a sense of character that is both complex and empathetic, like a feral animal clambering desperately for shelter.

Why this doesn't have more people singing its praises is beyond me. It's excellent. Stylishly made and it keeps you in its grip from beginning to end. For a killer double bill, I suggest pairing it with another criminally underrated title, namely James Marsh's "Shadow Dancer".

A fine movie that keeps the tension going during its 90 or so minutes. The performances are all pretty good here, especially that of the lead (Jack O'Connell) and the young Protestant boy he encounters part of the way through. Great cinematography, and I especially like the film's use of color. Belfast is bathed in yellow-orange throughout the movie, which is meant to show the sickness of the city due to the rioting and factionalism. The ending is also highly successful and fittingly melancholy.

A stark, brutal experience with tense action sequences that put pulpier action films to shame. Acting is top notch, but as an American, I felt I need subtitles at times.

Very good.

A graphic movie about a horrendous true story. There is pretty much non-stop action. The young soldier finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time & his struggle to survive was both scary & riveting. I needed subtitles for the spoken English. Their thick accents were hard to understand. Acting performances were excellent throughout. Jack O'Connell made an excellent lead. Production quality was good. Music and sound was also good. There was not much setup to the story though.

A young British soldier (Jack O'Connell) finds himself wounded and on the run in Unionist Belfast, and is pursued by the IRA and by a British officer looking to cover up his clandestine activities. Yann Demange's direction conveys the chaos of the Troubles and the soldier's travails, and it remains fairly compelling throughout--but the characters are awfully thin and the heavy accents make following the story more than a little difficult. The portrayal of the British is arguably too soft.

The raw action works and builds up some really intense moments, especially in the first half, but the structure of the ungrateful army and its alway-evil characters felt a little outworn for my taste.

Made me feel very uneasy, so much that I couldn't watch it in one sitting. A rare breed of terror that will do that to me

A great film showing many sides of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Great drama, photography, script, and acting.

Few others exploit the naturalistic, hand-held format as wrenchingly as Demange does in "'71", one of 2014's most powerful. There are sequences of sheer visceral potency that easily rival, say, "Saving Private Ryan" (the chase near the start is marvelous filmmaking and even the old 'freshman killer can't pull trigger' thing plays out great). Everyone's allegiances are blurry at best, but, as the film's oppressive atmosphere implies, in the animalistic paranoia of war these things hardly matter.

Fun movie to watch, with intermixed hard action moments. After it ended, I quickly forgot everything about it, though.

Atmospheric thriller, which gets to the meat of the plot very early on, and then turns into a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse played out in dark, moody locations with a few neatly portrayed supporting characters. The director did a good job of portraying how confusing the N.I. situation can be for an outsider, and how loyalties can depend on many unpredictable factors. I thought the ending was a bit of a let-down though, quite formulaic. The first half however was gripping.

I found this to be quite the engrossing film about subject matter that can be tough to watch. The filmmakers get a good gritty feel to a period of time that must have been tough to get through. The actors do a fine job with the material especially the young brit who gets stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time.

B+

A shocking look at the madness of urban warfare.

Really disappointed in this one. Horribly shot and edited action props up a cliche riddled story with characters so thin they are actually hard to tell apart. Surprised by all the high scores for this, especially surprised by all the praise Jack O'Connell has gotten for his underwhelming performance in an underwritten role. Video review: https://youtu.be/al_Ntdx3Zl4

Followed the movie right up to the first shooting, then it became very confusing.

Interesting and entertaining but ultimately doesn't draw you in to connect with the main character. Also, whilst there are some great action moments, the overall plot is too confused and unclear making it hard to follow. This is made worse by some questionable accents and hard to hear words at times. There were also a few moments of jarring camera work which took me out of the film. Not bad if you're after some decent action but I won't be revisiting this one.

It is an entertaining one but not solid, once the resolution starts to unfold you lose interest in the movie. As I said worth watching the movie anyway.

If the only way to tell this story was to film the whole damn thing in the dark and allow all actors to mumble in breathy and whispered thick Irish brogues, then it wasn't worth telling.

This is a really nice underrated gem that creates a dark and desperate vision of guerilla warfare in the midst of 1970's Belfast that is both terrifying and tragic. The film is messy and grim and doesn't try to sugarcoat its vision of politically-charged turmoil.

It's a good setting for a thriller, and the good execution generates suspense, but the script is bland and unsubtle with an especially theatrical climax.

For such a stripped down movie, the plot was thick, and it was hard to follow which side anyone was on. Politics, cover ups, it was all there. The suspense and pacing were good, and it all boiled down to a tight, cerebral thriller.