"Take it and give it back" is the shout in the boxing match that opens this strikingly accomplished first feature from director Yann Demange and screenwriter Gregory Burke. It could serve ably as both précis of — and motto for — the combustible situation these young soldiers are about to ignorantly walk into: Belfast, 1971. A city divided largely along Protestant and Catholic lines — the Loyalists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, and the Republicans who want it to join Eire — Belfast is a kitchen-sink war zone.
This is a tribal situation the British Army are portrayed as blundering into, with elements both nefarious and naive. While a unit of undercover soldiers (lead by Sean Harris) are clearly up to some Bad Shit, the regular army is dodging it on the street — literally, as locals fling faeces at the unwelcome “Brits”. More bewildered than he is belligerent, Jack O’Connell’s young private is our avatar, left behind thanks to the panic of his inexperienced commanding officer (Sam Reid).
Wounded and scared and largely silent, O’Connell struggles through the streets in a performance that’s wonderfully watchable. From Eden Lake to Starred Up, we know he can ‘do’ violence, but here he holds the screen with no swagger — just a simple desire to survive. As a knife-wielding hero, he’s less like Sylvester Stallone in Rambo than he is Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. The John Carpenter touches extend to David Holmes’ judiciously used score, plus the sense ’71 is, like Assault On Precinct 13, an urban Western. This points to an element some might find uncomfortable: ’71 is, in some ways, a popcorn thriller about a community in tragedy. But however exciting the set-pieces, the film retains its integrity. The violence is seen, shockingly, and felt — from bomb to blade. Demange’s direction puts you right there and, while Burke’s script isn’t given to political grandstanding, its glancing blows have a lasting impact. ’71 is one of the best films of ’14.