Screened as part of NZIFF 2015

’71 2014

Directed by Yann Demange

This nerve-racking wartime thriller from director Yann Demange and Black Watch writer Gregory Burke stars Jack O’Connell (Starred Up) as a lost British soldier hunted by both sides amid the mayhem of Belfast, 1971.

UK In English
99 minutes CinemaScope / DCP

Director

Producers

Angus Lamont
,
Robin Gutch

Screenplay

Gregory Burke

Photography

Tat Radcliffe

Editor

Chris Wyatt

Production designer

Chris Oddy

Costume designer

Jane Petrie

Music

David Holmes

With

Jack O’Connell (Gary Hook)
,
Paul Anderson (Sergeant Leslie Lewis)
,
Richard Dormer (Eamon)
,
Sean Harris (Captain Sandy Browning)
,
Barry Keoghan (Sean Bannon)
,
Martin McCann (Paul Haggerty)
,
Charlie Murphy (Brigid)
,
Sam Reid (Lt Armitage)
,
Killian Scott (Quinn)
,
David Wilmot (Boyle)
,
Jack Lowden (Thommo)
,
Jim Sturgeon (Sergeant John Vickers)

Festivals

Berlin
,
Karlovy Vary
,
Toronto
,
New York
,
London 2014
,
Sundance 2015

Elsewhere

“Bomb-torn Belfast in 1971 must have been like nowhere else on Earth – more like a rubble-strewn circle of hell. This is the apocalyptic vision laid out in Yann Demange’s stunningly well-crafted survival thriller, ’71. The film’s stark realism and bruising impact are enough in themselves, but the risk, and the real artistic payoff, is its bold sensory plunge into this Hadean inferno. Jack O’Connell [Starred Up] stars as Gary Hook, a young squaddie fresh out of training school, whose unit is dispatched to help with peacekeeping in the Northern Irish capital, amid the rising tensions of that fatefully violent year.

These unprepared rookies have barely taken to the streets before rioting breaks out, and Gary finds himself cut adrift from his companions. As night closes in, he has no idea how to get back to his barracks, and must throw himself on the mercy of loyalist allies who are no certain guarantees of sanctuary… Gary is by no means the kind of trigger-happy meathead you might expect to find as an extra in Paul Greengrass’s much more politically incendiary Bloody Sunday. Instead, he’s green, terrified, out of his depth. O’Connell’s performance in this near-wordless role hardly strikes a false note: he’s excellent as usual.

You expect the film to make a lunge for balance at some point, but the wrinkles in its plotting arrive at offhandedly shocking moments, and it’s remarkable how well the script, by Scottish playwright Gregory Burke (Black Watch), manages to weave a nexus of competing agendas without indulging in heavy-weather exposition at any point.” — Tim Robey, The Telegraph