Bloody Sunday Movie
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Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
Documentary-style drama showing the events that lead up to the tragic incident on January 30, 1972 in the Northern Ireland town of Derry when a protest march led by civil rights activist Ivan Cooper was fired upon by British troops, killing 13 protesters and wounding 14 more.
| James Nesbitt | Ivan Cooper |
| Allan Gildea | Kevin McCorry |
| Gerard Crossan | Eamonn McCann |
| Mary Moulds | Bernadette Devlin |
| Carmel McCallion | Bridget Bond |
| Tim Pigott-Smith | Major General Ford |
| Nicholas Farrell | Brigadier Maclellan |
| Christopher Villiers | Major Steele |
| James Hewitt | Colonel Tugwell |
| Declan Duddy | Gerry Donaghy |
| Edel Frazer | Gerry's girl |
| Lindsay Lohan | Mary Donaghy |
| Mike Edwards | Soldier 027 |
| Gerry Hammond | Para F |
| Jason Stammers | Para G |
| Paul Greengrass |
7.70 out of 10 (4460 votes)
Visitor Reviews
an authentic-looking recreation of events.
posted on 04 Aug 2009Shot in a hand-held documentary style, this conveyed the feelings of anger on the one hand and indifference on the other that lead to the killing of 13 people.It is clear why so many turned to the IRA after the tragedy of this event and perhaps puts some of the terrorism of the ensuing years into context. That is not to say that perhaps there were some omissions. I thought it didn't quite convey the fear the soldiers felt that might have caused them to fire, it is assumed that they did so with little provocation. Maybe this was true. On the whole it does tend to cast them as heartless b***ards intent on zero tolerance and they were one dimensional compared to the Irish characters. It is never really clear why they pulled the triggers.However, it is plain to see that this event set the tone for the remainder of the decade and hopefully a similar massacre will never be purpotrated by the British army, especially on people with whom we share this group of islands.On whether another film made to redress the balance on events in places such as Enniskillen, Omagh and Brighton should be produced, I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't achieve anything.Hopefully, we've moved on from all this and the peace process is irreversible. It was interesting to see Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness walking into Westminster today. This is where this issue on the partition of Ireland will finally be solved and not by the bullet and the bomb.
Fact or fiction? A good film, all the same...
posted on 17 Jun 2009As I really don't know anything about the events depicted in this film, I can't say whether it's a realistic or biased account of what happened. As "just" a film, I found it to be very good.The documentary style of shooting it works most of the time (the constant fade ins/outs really bothered me though), and the film builds up tension and keeps you watching. The acting is also good. Nesbitt skillfully manages to switch moods depending on who he is talking to, all with remarkable ease. Also, kudos to the actor portraying the commander (or whatever you call it) of the British paras. He doesn't seem to be acting at all, it's like you're really watching a documentary when he is on screen.Towards the end, the film does tend to skip realism a bit, as it seems to side with the demonstrators a tad too much, while showing off all English soldiers as cold blooded killers. On the whole though, a very watchable film. [8/10]
A Credit to the victims of Bloody Sunday!
posted on 13 Jun 2009This film was a real credit to Paul Greengrass and the Bloody Sunday Victims a film that documents the evidence given to Lord Saville's enquiry on that fateful day.A film that seems biased but sadly is quite true and shows the embarrassment of British forces on that day.It's a film about a Protestant SDLP MP called Ivan Cooper, who fought for Catholic civil rights and led a march to end internment in which Catholics were arrested and imprisoned without trial.The civil rights march took place on January 30th 1972. It ended with 13 unarmed civilians killed in cold blood by the British Army's 1st Parachute Regiment.The film is a gritty insight into the actions with different scenes representing different parts of evidence, which was, given to the enquiry. It was filmed in Derry and is quite realistic to the march on that day. People that were in attendance on that day were also used in the film. Actor James Nesbit also a Protestant Played the role of Ivan Cooper quite well and Gerard McSorley also commanded his role greatly of RUC Chief Inspector Frank Lagan a man who showed deep emotion in realising a British Army disaster. Tim Piggot Smith can also be commended for his role of Major General Ford who took command of the mission that day.The film is quite unbiased as it shows the disaster causing actions of both sides showing British Soldiers shooting on a crowd of running unarmed civilians and supposed IRA involvement so not many people could argue that this film was propaganda of sorts but a quite well directed insight and a credit to international Human rights.
One day of "the troubles" packs a universal wallop.
posted on 05 Jun 2009"Bloody Sunday" is a very startling, cinema-verite recreation of a very specific date (January 30, 1972), in a very specific place (Derry, Northern Ireland) of an event that for the Irish became "our Sharpeville."But for an American audience with no benefit of subtitles for the brogues and working class Brit accents, no explanations outside of eventual context for lingo and slang (it took me awhile to keep track of "provos" vs "paras"), the quasi-documentary, in-your-face approach takes on a tragic universality.It could be part of a Cassandra trilogy with `Black Hawk Down' and `No Man's Land' about why military should not be in charge in urban strife, whether as "peacekeepers" or in civil wars or regime changes, no matter how heinous the regime to be changed. A lesson for the Baghdad invasion planners?Cities are complicated social ecologies, and the film shows a great diversity of attitudes and pressures on all sides, managing to be both clinical in meticulous detail and visceral in shocking impact. The film is probably not objective about the British (I don't think it's a coincidence that the imperious Brit "observer" who takes repugnant charge is played by Tim Pigott-Smith who was a similar colonialist in `The Jewel in the Crown.") A central universal image becomes the awesome power of rock-throwing, unemployed teen-age boys to spark war.The liberals in the middle, clinging to dreams of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and fair community relations, are morally destroyed over the course of a few hours and the extremists with guns on both sides feed on each other in perpetual destruction like the ouroboros image of the snake eating itself. I kept feeling I missed the exact flash point in a wandering attention moment and wanted to immediately re-watch it to see if I could track the gotcha! moment when escalation could have been prevented, so I look forward to this being available on video tape.But the film does clearly show that it was attitudes that created the violent outcome and consequent government non-investigation, as we see in so many police situations. Once soldiers enter a city it is a police situation with all those complexities.I know James Nesbitt primarily from frothy Irish comedies, like `BallykissAngel,' so his staggering portrayal of the M.P. in the middle is a revelation, as he goes from planning a civil rights march to pleading with his girlfriend to physical heroism to a break-down in shock.The version of the titular U2 song played out at the end, running well past the credits finish, is a moving, live, passionate audience sing-along where Bono shouts out other locales that have experienced similar situations to emphasize the universality.
Very nice movie and very intense!
posted on 12 Apr 2009When I saw the movie, I knew what happened on bloody sunday. I guess when you don't know anything about it, you will loose the clue of the movie.That aside, this is a fine movie. It didn't get bored for one second. The style of filming is very weird, especially in the beginning, but it gives you the feeling you are living the movie, it's so intense what you see, especially when you know this really happend. And the actors did a great job, everything looks very realistic.Although I find the end a little bit weird. I had hoped to get a little bit more information about what really happened after bloody sunday.I recommand this movie to everybody! I give it a 9/10
Worth every second (and penny)
posted on 06 Apr 2009I have been reading Don Mullan's "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday" and had to go out and rent the film. Wow. I went to Ireland over the summer and spent a few days in Derry learning the history, and seeing the memorial. I went to the museum and then over to watch the Bloody Sunday Inquiries that is being shown in Derry (although taking place in London at the moment).While we were there, we cried. Seeing everything is just heart breaking. But watching this movie made it real. Seeing the Free Derry corner, watching the people march, and experiencing the chaos of that day brought a whole lot to light for me. I always knew that British imperialism sucked...now there is proof (for me, at least). Still amazed,
Would other commentators please stick to the film not the politics
posted on 15 Mar 2009I've just seen this film, and give it a 8/10 rating, it is for me, an Irishman living in the South, a terrifying account of a day which will always be indelibly stamped on my memory. The national newspapers carried the images of the slain in graphic detail, which to a child (as I was then), became the dawning of the realisation of the turmoil which was Northern Ireland of the early 70's. I did not understand then, why they were shot, and sadly after 30+ years we still do not know the reason why the Paras opened fire. This movie does give an accurate dipiction and the acting is brilliant, especially the Para officers who are incredibly believable. I can see where film goers on the other side of the Atlantic Pond, got impatient with the dialog and shaky camera work, this is not easy viewing.However for me it was as if those terrible black and white images carried on the national press the following day, suddenly came to life in raw power, well done to the makers, powerful stuff. I also wish that commentators to this great website, would refrain from their political bias and comment on the film. Who cares what side you are from ? it's got nothing to do with this film.
Bloody good, and made me bloody angry, despite the bloody awful cinematography
posted on 07 Mar 2009You apprehend an armed man, who admits to being a professional bank robber, outside a bank. Inside the bank three people lie badly wounded on the floor. The bank robber blames the victims for their injuries, and (perhaps as an afterthought) also blames others standing in the queue; he says they started the violence. The victims blame the bank robber. Only if you were so feeble-minded as to have no ability to process evidence at all would you subject the two claims to an equal amount of scepticism. Anyone interested in arriving at the truth would be biased against the bank robber. Yes, it's not impossible that he's telling the truth; it's possible that the victims ARE to blame for their own injuries. But the burden of proof rests with him, with the man who walked into the bank carrying a rifle.The following is public knowledge, known to people who weren't there and not denied even by the British army: The organisers of the march urged the people taking part not to resort to violence, however much provoked. They certainly didn't arm the marchers themselves. The officers of the army DID arm its soldiers, with powerful rifles, tear gas cannisters, heavy artillery and tanks. Moreover they did NOT forswear violence, even in the statements they made for the benefit of the press: on the contrary, they announced their willingness to use their weapons in retaliation; not just in self-defence, mind you, but in retaliation. That journalists could sit through a press conference in which Major-General Ford says, as a message to the organisers of the march: "Any violence that may result rests squarely on your shoulders," without snorting derisively, is surprising however much mainstream coverage you've seen of the recent attack on Iraq.Greengrass has made a fictional recreation of an actual event and obviously he's had to fill in details. (Obviously, no outsider could possibly know for sure what Cooper said to his girlfriend in the privacy of his own home the morning before the march, etc.) But he's been exraordinarily careful, so far as I can tell, to fill in details in the most plausible way he can; only two or three times does anyone so much as utter a single line of dialogue that strikes me as unlikely (a line that sounds as though it may have been inserted for the purpose of exposition), and even then, not much. Not often, but sometimes, Greengrass has to choose between two conflictng accounts of what happened. If he doesn't do so he doesn't have a film. So he chooses whichever is most likely, which of course makes him biased; that is to say, a rational creature, and not a kind of walking dictaphone incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood.Obviously I wouldn't be going to so much trouble to defend the film on this one point if I didn't also think it was good. It's a powerful and convincing account of a day gone wrong... a single day, with a couple of days' background, which is why people who accuse it of being a one-sided account of the conflict in Northern Ireland are also wrong: you either know or you don't why the protestors are marching, and the film doesn't include any forced exposition to try to cue in people who don't know. And while the film hints at what's likely to happen next, as a result of the violence, it doesn't include or pretend to include that story, either. I like a film that knows what it's about and what it's not about.The cinematography is, alas, awful. What is Greengrass trying to do with all this needless, eye-watering camera-shaking - forge documentary footage? Only if he's a bigger fool than he could possibly be given the script he's written. He shows private domestic scenes no cameraman would be allowed to film, then wobbles the camera as though to remind us that there is a cameraman present, and an inept one, too, when in the world of the fiction, there isn't; and even outside the world of the fiction, one hopes that the cameraman isn't really as inept as he's pretending to be, although there's no direct visual evidence to the contrary. There's no excuse for such riding-over-a-cattle-grid photography. Nor is there an excuse for such horrible, dour, bluish-grey colour processing, the kind that announces to the audience, "I wanted to shoot in black and white, but they wouldn't let me."Don't suppose for a minute that any of this HELPS the film. But the script, and Greengrasss sureity of purpose, are enough to ensure that it does little or no harm. We're taken completely inside the story despite (certainly not because of) the photography, and given the nature of what we watch... well, anger directed at the guy behind the camera seems misplaced.
Well represented
posted on 27 Nov 2008This film did an excellent job of presenting the events of Bloody Sunday from a neutral perspective allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the events. The film did not villianize either party, but rather humanized the chaos. Overall, it is an excellent and poignant film.
Very realistic
posted on 06 Sep 2008A true work of cinema verite. The movie draws you into it. There came a point, near the end, when the Ivan Cooper character is walking around the makeshift morgue, and he's seeing the family members of the dead wailing and crying, that it actually seems like you are a part of the film. It's amazing. You become, not just an observer, but almost an emotional participant. The only other sensation, in a movie, that I've had like that is in "Private Ryan" when Tom Cruise is dying near the "alamo", and he looks over and sees that the Tom Sizemore character is dead.The only disappointing thing about the film was, not knowing a whole lot of the chronolgy of the period, that I thought the Gerry character was going to be developed as Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, who was just out of prison at that time this took place, just like the character in the film. He would have also been about the same age as the character. It turns out that he dies in the movie so that can't be true, but it was probably a thought that the writer had in developing the part. Watch it, it's great, but make sure you sit through it without interruption so you get the full effect of the true power of the film.
CIVIL RIGHTS FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT
posted on 02 Sep 2008BLOODY SUNDAY (2002) ***1/2 Filmmaker Paul Greengrass expertly adapts Don Mullan's account of the fateful day of January 20, 1972 in Northern Ireland's tranquil rural town of Derry where a peaceful civil rights march led by political activist Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt in an incredibly powerful performance) turned into a horrible account of bloodshed after British troops that were stationed to oversee the protest fired into the unarmed crowd killing 13 innocents. The documentary-like you-are-there mise-en-scene deftly depicts the ensuing violence, anger and ultimately stirring call to arms by the IRA to continue its decades old stand against the empowering UK's vice-like grip.
JUSTICE ??
posted on 01 Aug 2008This film suffered from the 30 year anniversary. A TV movie was released at the same time, with a more emotional narrative. However this was the more realistic, and perhaps set the background a lot better. I think perhaps that you're still left confused, despite the dreadful wrongs committed on that day.
Some feeling but rather light politically
posted on 28 Jul 2008One more film on this Bloody Sunday, will you say. Shot for television in 2001. What can we add to the plain fact of 13 people killed in cold blood by the paratroopers of Her Majesty the Queen of England without any clear order to do so ? There is no excuse for this event, absolutely no excuse. The march should not have been banned and blocked in the first place. That was a total misunderstanding of the situation. And the English had never had anything to do in Ireland in the first place. The film though is not as effective as it could have been because the editing choice is pretty simple, not to say bizarre. Why try to produce a sloppy, amateurish and old TV documentary when everyone knows it is done on purpose by professionals in 2001 and with only filmed professional actors. It makes the film very chaotic and bumpy. The only thing that is clear is that the demonstrators were pretty amateurish in their non-violent disorganized organization whereas the paratroopers were pretty good professionals at obeying an order that never existed and the army was very good at covering up the event. And we have to keep in mind it will take more than 25 years to finally start moving towards a political settlement. And it is still fragile and could erupt again any time even if the situation is improving steadily day after day. We are still far from the end. Keep in mind that 13 dead people in Londonderry is probably more than in Tien An Men if we take into account the respective populations of Northern Ireland and China, and even one casualty would have been too many. As far as I know there was no casualty when Martin Luther King marched in Washington DC, and we can be absolutely sure that Martin Luther King's Baptist dream was just as valuable as that of these Northern Irish Catholic citizens, and vice versa of course.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Blatant propaganda film: British = Bad! Irish Catholic = Good!
posted on 22 Jun 2008There is enough audience manipulation and fudging of the facts here to make Oliver Stone proud. Didactic movies such as this are annoying, no matter how good the director's technical skill, because they talk down to you and tell you what you ought to believe, based on a conveniently selected subset of the facts. For instance, what were the IRA doing that day in this supposed IRA stronghold? We are not told. It is certainly legitimate for the director to question the official British version of events, but he fails to apply the same skeptical standards to the other side. While this docu-drama fails as a documentary, does it at least work as a drama? Yes and no. One the one hand, I found the hand-held "war correspondent" camerawork to be very effective. In addition, the director was able to elicit wonderfully naturalistic performances from his actors. But there are narrative failures. Strangely, the motivations of the British paratroopers to kill are not explored at all. One minute they are there with a disciplined plan to break up the march and arrest activists, and the next they are shown running amuck like crazed psychopaths shooting people execution-style. The film initially takes great pains to show the professionalism of the British troops as they organize, and then portrays them as behaving completely unprofessionally in the field. My guess is that this incongruity is a result of the director having left out some inconvenient facts that would weaken the anti-British moral judgement he is pushing. It's tough to maintain a consistent story line when you are so busy coming up with speculative embellishments and stripping out what you don't want the audience to know.
The first victim is the Truth
posted on 02 Jun 2008Here we go again...another piece of one sided political propaganda which fails to give a realistic rounded view of this incident when IRA terrorists shot at British troops under cover of a local riot.There is little mention of this perspective, this would hardly suit the political agenda which this film waves loudly. There is no discussion of the events leading up to this incident ie that large numbers of police and innocent civilians had been bombed and killed by terrorists under similar circumstances.The so called civil rights march also included people calling these terrorists, political prisoners, presumably they would believe that those Al Queda prisoners in Cuba are political prisoners also.The film ignores the facts in the search for emotional fairytale land. A poor film which deserves to be called a party political broadcast. 1/10.
Atmospheric film helped by strong acting
posted on 15 May 2008Paul Greengrass' filmmaking specialises in re-enacting controversial real life events, and there are few more controversial events than the massacre of 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators on 30th January 1972. The film marks the 30th anniversary.The screenplay does not, as some have inevitably claimed, act as a propaganda feature for Irish nationalism. It goes some way to showing how the Parachute Regiment were given orders on the ground which went beyond their orders from a confused base, though demonstrating how individual soldiers were responsible for their actions.The overall atmosphere of confusion on all sides is added to by the cinematography, with handheld cameras used in crowd scenes. The gloomy lighting and drab colours, in a battle-scarred part of Derry, bring the period back to life, as do the mechanical telephones which ring constantly.At the centre of the film James Nesbitt gives a superb and striking performance as Ivan Cooper, who at all times is trying to avoid the outbreak of violence as the situation slides away from him. Tim Pigott-Smith, as the Parachute Regiment commander, is believably aggressive and ignorant.It is a slight pity that Ivan Cooper is misrepresented as a Westminster MP (he was actually an MP at Stormont) and as "the MP for this area" (he actually represented the Mid Derry division, while the march took place through the Foyle division which was represented by John Hume).
Bloody Sunday
posted on 21 Apr 2008Before The Bourne Supremacy, director Paul Greengrass made this historical drama based on a non-fiction book. Basically this is a documentary style film showing the events on January 30th, 1972, where a protest march through Londonderry for civil rights led by activist MP Ivan Cooper (BAFTA TV Award nominated James Nesbitt) turns into a disaster. I think it is when marchers start pelting the Parachute Regiment that they begin shooting at them, and they killed thirteen people, and wounded fourteen more. You see the action from both sides of the drama, from the protesters' point of view, and the members of the Regiment, including Major General Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith) and Brigadier MacLellan (Nicholas Farrell). Also starring Gerard McSorley as Chief Supt. Lagan, Kathy Kiera Clarke as Frances, Allan Gildea as Kevin McCorry, Gerard Crossan as Eamonn McCann and Mary Moulds as Bernadette Devlin. The only off-putting thing about this film is the frequent fades to black and no sound pauses going through the action, but besides this, a pretty powerful and provocative film. It won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Photography and Lighting, and it was nominated for Best Editing, Best Single Drama and Best Sound. Very good!
An honourable and courageous film about an atrocity
posted on 12 Mar 2008The English director Paul Greengrass has made an very fine film about an atrocity which many British people would still like to wish away.The abuse levelled at the film is distinguished by ignorance of what happened and a partisanship that the director has plainly tried to avoid. If Greengrass is on the side of anyone it is the moderates on both sides whose hopes of establishing a non-violent way forward were brutally undermined in one bloody afternoon.
wack
posted on 02 Mar 2008for my as level case study we watched bloody Sunday. we watched this film after watching "in the name of the farther" which everyone in my class enjoyed.however i don't think there was a single person in my class who enjoyed bloody Sunday. im not dismissing the fact that it was an important event, and im not slating it for any reason to do with that. i simply thought much of the acting was poor ( i.e. British troops) and that some of the editing was a bit tiresome e.g. fades.all in all the film was very successful , however in my opinion i felt ti was overrated.
Magnificent!
posted on 06 Aug 2009A convincing, thrilling reconstruction of that disastrous day. It's got it all: the confusion, the tension, the outburst of violence, and the struggle of two men trying to let things not getting out of hand, and their failure to achieve this. Great performances, great filming!