RESURRECTION MAN (1998)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Wars bring death, destruction and misery and because of that are
disliked by most people taking part or being directly affected by
them. There is, however, minority that sees wars in completely
different light. For them, wars aren't calamity but opportunity. They
give new meaning to certain acts that would otherwise be
condemned by society; instead of being criminals, their perpetrators
become heroes. RESURRECTION MAN, 1998 British film directed by
Marc Evans, explores this disturbing phenomenon.
Plot of the film is based on the novel by Eion McNamee (who also
wrote screenplay) and deals with grim realities of 1975 Northern
Ireland. In the long, dirty war between Catholics and Protestants
streets of Belfast are turned into battlefield and terror is the only
weapon. Victor Kelly (played by Stuart Townsend), son of a Catholic
father and Protestant mother, has joined Protestant paramilitary
group. Trying to win the trust of his suspicious comrades, Kelly
excels in torturing and killing enemies. After a while he gains
charisma and gradually deprives group's leader Darkie Larch (played
by John Hannah) of his girlfriend Heather Graham (played by
Geraldine O'Rawe) and leadership. Kelly's butchery brings attention
of Ryan (played by James Nesbitt), alcoholic journalist determined to
gain fame by exposing terrorists. Because of media interest and
Kelly's cocaine-fuelled killing going out of control, Sammy McClure
(played by Sean McGinley), shadowy and well-connected leader of
Protestant paramilitaries, begins to see charismatic thug as liability.
The violence in RESURRECTION MAN is very graphic and very
disturbing. Even more disturbing is fact that it was inspired by true
story. But the audience would have problems to realise that, because
Marc Evans gives only lip services to complicated political, social,
economic and cultural realities of 1970s Northern Ireland. He is more
interested in Victor Kelly as a typical gangster. Stuart Townsend
gives truly chilling performance as psychopathic killer but Evans fails
to explain his actions. Furthermore, while he suggests that most of
the world's terrorists and "freedom fighters" are actually gangsters
and thugs, he doesn't deal with collective psychology that transforms
these monsters into folk heroes. Subplot with journalist - introduced
in order to bring some "normal" point of view in the film - is
compromised with that journalist being alcoholic. McNamee also
complicates things with cheap melodrama, underlined with Evans'
irritating MTV-style direction. Idea to confront the bleak realities of
1970s Northern Ireland with colourful, hedonistic lifestyle of Disco
Era was good, but Evans didn't execute it very well. In the end,
RESURRECTION MAN is made watchable (at least for those who can
stomach graphic violence) with good acting, but for films dealing
with such important and unpleasant issues being merely watchable is
equal to failure.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
Review written on April 12th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37563 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1271437 X-RT-TitleID: 1094131 X-RT-AuthorID: 1307 X-RT-RatingText: 3/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews