'71

A mild disclaimer before I start this review: '71 is not yet playing in theaters outside of the UK…so take that for what it is. Anyways, on to the review of the movie you probably won't ever see!

IndieWire

From what I saw in this movie, 1971 wasn't the best time to join the army. Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell, star of the upcoming Unbroken) apparently had a different idea, and enlists during the time of the ultimate Protestant/Catholic religious turmoil in Northern Ireland. After his troop's deployment from Great Britain, Gary becomes separated from his brothers in arms when a riot in the center of Belfast goes violently awry. With most of the city eager to put a bullet in his head, Gary struggles to survive the night and find an ally who can help get him back to his barracks.

'71's action sequences can be frustrating, to say the least. While the film jumps right into action after ten minutes or so, and the realistic bombardment of violence more than captivates, it's hard to keep focus on the deadly haywire when the filmmakers decide to go for a shaky cam approach. It may have been done to add the appropriate sense of urgency, but I paid for a ticket to '71, not Cloverfield. The approach didn't work for The Hunger Games, and it didn't help much here either.

On top of that, I've always found action sequences to be more gripping when we care about the characters who might be dying during them. '71 sacrificed sufficient character establishment in order to throw us right into the action, and while this did make it stand out from other films of its kind, I never really got the answers I was looking for regarding the players. All we really know about Gary is that he's from Great Britain and has a younger brother, and aside from that, his life's story is anybody's guess. Oh, and the other characters? Forget about their back stories and motivations as well. "Who are the two red-headed guys? And are they good or bad?" I guess I'll never know the detailed answers to those questions. (Side note: the accents were very strong in this movie, and the dialogue was a bit mumbly. Had I watched this at home with subtitles, the character's decisions and words might've been a bit clearer).

Still, much is to be said about the originality the film took in its approach. When the camera holds steady, you'll see that '71 has some of the most jaw-droppingly graphic war scenes since Black Hawk Down, which usually show up abruptly and hold nothing back. What really makes the film worthy of your time is its underlying messages about violence and war relating to children.

Gary is probably around 18 or 19, and so when a Belfast citizen intervenes when a group of town members are savagely beating him and his comrade, proclaiming that they're young enough to be the attackers' own sons, that was my first clue. But from the moment the camera takes us to Belfast, we see kids around the age of six or seven leaning over a fence, cursing, yelling, and throwing things at our heroes. One kid steals a machine gun, while another who is out far past his bedtime drinks from a pint in the bar and loses both his arms in an explosion that almost takes his life, all because he wanted to be apart of what was going on around him. We are also exposed to another character, Shaun (probably in his early teens), who is seen abandoning his family's home to help find and kill Gary. Immediately following this, we see his sister stop drawing a flower with her colored pencil, and get up from the table she was using. The camera waits just long enough to see the pencil fall off the table, and if that's not a direct message about the literal fall of innocence during times of war, I must be reading the movie all wrong.

With its messages, atmosphere, and (usually) visionary action scenes, '71 stands out in the large canon of pre-existing war films. While the characters and cinematography were a letdown, the film's authenticity was enough to save it.

Rating: 4/5