Conspiracy thriller about English abuses of power in Northern Ireland, featuring a simple but effective strategy of establishing an almost documentary realism so that the viewer will be less disposed to doubt the undocumented allegations. There is a considerable presence of TV news cameras on screen, and a considerable imitation of such cameras by the movie camera off screen: not always the "best," the clearest, the closest of possible angles. The case against the forces of occupation is made without provocativeness and without argumentativeness, but with instead a weary and steady matter-of-factness indicative of the longtime Left-winger who could only possibly be shocked anymore by a disclosure that a conservative government was not getting up to anything dirty and subsequently lying about it. The price of this approach in dramatic terms is a somewhat diminished impact and immediacy. And in commercial terms the price of it is writing off, or chasing away, the mass audience in order to commune with the few, the hardy, the already persuaded. Frances McDormand, Brian Cox, Brad Dourif; directed by Ken Loach. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd
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