Set over one terrifying night during a pivotal period of the Troubles, '71 is a thriller that will make your nerves audibly jangle and even your popcorn break out in a light sweat. It stars man-of-moment Jack O'Connell in another life-and-death military turn to add to his work in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken. This time, he's a British soldier left to fend for himself in territory that, as the film's new poster suggest, is hardly rolling out the red carpet for squaddies. O'Connell is Gary Hook, a newbie infantryman who is separated from his comrades when a raid goes horribly wrong. Like Carol Reed's **Odd Man Out **in reverse, Hook is left to negotiate a deadly rabbit warren of alleys, houses and darkened streets as he seeks to evade the IRA men hunting him down. But will he make it through the night? Frankly, we don't know, but we're strapping in for the ride.
TV director Yann Demange, of Top Boy and Criminal Justice, is the man cranking as much tension as humanly possible from Gregory Burke's screenplay. The Scottish writer is no stranger to this kind of terrain - his play Black Watch tackled the titular regiment's travails in Iraq - and the early buzz on his first film script is equally positive.
Belfast native David Holmes, a man who remembers this fraught period in his city's history first hand, has provided the score, while Under The Skin production designer Chris Oddy is responsible for recreating the nightmarish cityscape that would give even Snake Plissken the collywobbles.
'71 arrives in UK cinemas on October 10.
brightcove.createExperiences();