Hidden Agenda

The Wind That Shakes the Barley Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, this gripping drama by Ken Loach (Raining Stones) is set during the early days of the Irish Republican Army, when British occupation of the Irish radicalized many a citizen and caused some to take up arms. Cillian Murphy ...	Omagh The August 15, 1998 terrorist bombing in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh that killed 29 and injured hundreds of others is the raison d'etre for director Pete Travis's movie of the same name. But the bulk of this moving, beautifully-made film is devoted to the aftermath of the ...	Michael Collins The inspirational epic tale of the legendary patriot heralded as the father of modern ireland. Includes filmographies and production notes. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 02/14/2006 Starring: Liam Neeson Aidan Quinn Run time: 133 minutes Rating: R	Bloody Sunday With breathtaking verisimilitude, Bloody Sunday posits an immediate, you-are-there re-creation of Ireland's most controversial contemporary tragedy. From dusk to dawn, the events of January 30, 1972, are presented in convincing verité fashion; by employing rapid fade-to-black...	The Boxer (Collector's Edition) Yet another potent (although critically underrated) drama from Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis, the Irish director and British star (respectively) of My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. The story focuses on Danny Flynn (Day-Lewis), a promising boxer who had been impriso...
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Intelligent thriller
Obviously when a movie sets out to be a thriller about Northern Ireland with British secret service people bugging, stalking, and shooting down folks in the street, alot of people will get angry with its politics-as can be seen from some of the reviews. But it is an excellent thriller. Loach is a great director, and he really gets the pace of it right (i felt uncomfortable for the entire duration-a mark of a good thriller!) The ending was a little abrupt, but in retrospect probably the only realistic way of doing it (unless you want Margaret Thatcher to jump out and blow every one away with a semi-automatic). I'd definitely recommend this one.

plodding
Purports to take the audience behind the scenes at the highest levels of political intrigue, but the creators of this movie don't have the IQ or background to pull it off. A quick-to-describe example of the whole is how they present the character whose murder kicks off the plot. We're told that he's a first-rate lawyer from the USA. But there's not the slightest hint of mental acuity in anything he does. We're left with just the writer's word for it. And that's how the plot works, too. The progress of the protagonists through the investigation is unearned, just dumped in their laps. Lacking insight, uninspired.

A loser
I found this film one of the worst I have seen in quite some time, and watched it because I enjoyed the director's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." It's an implausible conspiracy-theory flick with the troubles in Northern Ireland as the backdrop; the larger conspiracy-crime in question actually deals with Britain and the Thatcher government. The script is overly talky and sometimes sophomoric. A sample: "Ireland would be a lovely country except for the Irish." Shock and horror? No, a big yawn... The best thing about the film-- everyday scenes of Belfast and Dublin. Watching a parade of groups of Protestants in similar but differently-colored uniforms playing fife and drums and waving flags MacDormand's character remarks, "Tribal ritual." Dourif's character responds, "It's frightening." Can you imagine a movie made by a "progressive" such as Loach having his main characters witness a Muslim celebration or a parade or pageant in Asia or Africa saying the same thing? Heck no, that would be insensitive and incorrect. I cannot see this film as a thriller-- it was obvious early who would be the bad guys. Only the nature of the conspiracy was yet to be exposed.

What can you say?
[Take a look at the attack on me on the comments page. What can you say?] A well-acted, trite and totally bogus tale of those big, bad wolves, the British Army. It's a fair enough prospect on paper, but it's all been done before. Cox, as ever, is superb, but wasted, and it makes you wonder what the whole point is now of this second rate racism, outside of Boston or Dublin. Tired, and one for die-hard Anglophobes. What can you say?

Hidden Agenda
This is a tell it like it was and unfortunately still is in Northern Irelan in this year 2007. It shows the power a a dominating goverment and how they will not let go and how so many suffer because of a political agenda, which is "HIDDEN------Slainte Donal Murphy II