Bloody Sunday
Director: Paul Greengrass
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.0
The people of the town of Derry, Northern Ireland protest against the British for their basic civil rights, but a few hooligans provoke the already testy soldiers, and it becomes a one-sided shoot-out. Superb on an aesthetic level - Greengrass' handheld/cinéma vérité approach has graced other films of his (to varied success) - but less so on an intellectual one, more or less privileging the IRA over the British, which is a troubling move. Okay, he concedes, some of the Derry residents started throwing rocks, but they didn't have guns or bombs - now where is the companion film that shows all the victims of the different forms of the IRA and their attacks? Give one side, give the other....
