A decent film well directed by Lance Daly with top-notch performances and shot in Western style . Pretty good film about a relentless pursuit carried out by a misfit bunch , being set in Ireland during the Great Famine , the drama follows an Irish Ranger called Feeney (James Frecheville) who has been fighting for the British Army abroad , as he leaves his post to reunite with his family . A British officer Pope (Freddie Fox) is assigned to detain him and he join forces with other volunteers as Hobson (Barry Keoghan) , Conneely (Stephen Rea) and the tough convict Hannah (Hugo Weaving) . All of them cross alone the stark lanscapes and wastelands that spread around them . As they go after the rebellious outlaw who is taking justice on their own hands . The rebel getaways on and on from the claws his pursuers , as he is mercilessly pursued by the motley team . At the end of the film, before the end credits, there is the following dedication: "in memory of all those who died, and those who went away, never to return." In Ireland's Darkest Hour Vengeance Shines a Light. A gritty revenge tale for fans of actioners like The Proposition.
An intense and strong drama follows an Irish Ranger who has been struggling in Afghanistan for the British Army , as he abandons his post to join his family , but things go wrong . Set in Ireland 1847 , during the Great Famine when the Irish potato famine was at its height and hundreds of thousands of people died from starvation , there in a far and undetermined corner of Ireland where ominous and abusive Brit soldiers , ruthless foremen , and nasty landholders impose their personal law with fear , vengeance , rage and violence in the scared and illiterate population . This is a downbeat and shocking movie set in an impoverished , tyrannical and oppressive country with absence of money , resources and starvation , being made in Spaghetti Western style with thrills , chills , emotion , go riding and thrilling fights . This is an interesting and intelligent picture following the wake of the twilight Western of the late Sixties and Seventies as Wild Bunch , Bite the Bullet , 100 Rifles or The Hunting Party . Director Lance Saly copes well this exciting movie helped by a great plethora of actors giving nice performances . The movie is a little downbeat , showing an Ireland of misery and poorness with a lot of people full of hunger, hate and blood . The picture is , sometimes , slowly paced , but entertaining enough . However , the film does succeed in giving us nice acting from the two leads . Cast is frankly magnificent . James Frecheville is very good as the ex-soldier who formerly experiencing the horrors of Afghan war , then he is shocked by the famine's destruction of his homeland and the brutalization of his people and his family . Hugo Weaving is terrific as a two-fisted soldier with moral values . And other actors as Freddie Fox , Stephen Rea , Barry Keoghan , Sarah Greene , Jim Broadbent are frankly fine . It packs adequate and atmospheric cinematography by Declan Quinn , made on location in ordinary Irish landscapes as Connemara, County Galway, Kildare, and Wicklow, Ireland. The sound is extremely good with a rousing musical score by Brian Byrne and evocative songs. The motion picture was well directed by Lance Daly (Life's a Breeze, The good doctor , Kisses, The Halo Effect , Last Days in Dublin).
Based on historical events about ¨The Great Famine¨ also known as the Great Hunger, the Great Starvation or the Irish Holocaust and sometimes referred to as the Irish Potato Famine mostly outside Ireland, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as the "hard times" or literally, "The Bad Life". The worst year of the period was 1847, known as "Black '47". During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated, causing Ireland's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. The proximate cause of the famine was a natural event, a potato blight, which infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, also causing some 100,000 deaths outside Ireland and influencing much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions of 1848. From 1846, the impact of the blight was exacerbated by the Whig government's economic policy of laissez-faire capitalism. Longer-term causes include the system of absentee landlordism, and single-crop dependence.The famine was a watershed in the history of Ireland,which from 1801 to 1922 was ruled directly by Westminster as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The famine and its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated two million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The strained relations between many Irish and their government soured further because of the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among Irish emigrants in the United States and elsewhere. Documentarian John Percival explains, the "famine became part of the long story of betrayal & exploitation which led to the growing movement in Ireland for independence".The potato blight returned to Europe in 1879, but by that point the Land War, described as one of the largest agrarian movements to take place in 19th-century Europe, had begun in Ireland.The movement, organized by the Land League, continued the political campaign for the Three Fs, issued in 1850 by the Tenant Right League during the Great Famine. When the potato blight returned in the 1879 famine the League boycotted "notorious landlords" and its members physically blocked evictions of farmers; the consequent reduction in homelessness and house demolition resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of deaths.
An intense and strong drama follows an Irish Ranger who has been struggling in Afghanistan for the British Army , as he abandons his post to join his family , but things go wrong . Set in Ireland 1847 , during the Great Famine when the Irish potato famine was at its height and hundreds of thousands of people died from starvation , there in a far and undetermined corner of Ireland where ominous and abusive Brit soldiers , ruthless foremen , and nasty landholders impose their personal law with fear , vengeance , rage and violence in the scared and illiterate population . This is a downbeat and shocking movie set in an impoverished , tyrannical and oppressive country with absence of money , resources and starvation , being made in Spaghetti Western style with thrills , chills , emotion , go riding and thrilling fights . This is an interesting and intelligent picture following the wake of the twilight Western of the late Sixties and Seventies as Wild Bunch , Bite the Bullet , 100 Rifles or The Hunting Party . Director Lance Saly copes well this exciting movie helped by a great plethora of actors giving nice performances . The movie is a little downbeat , showing an Ireland of misery and poorness with a lot of people full of hunger, hate and blood . The picture is , sometimes , slowly paced , but entertaining enough . However , the film does succeed in giving us nice acting from the two leads . Cast is frankly magnificent . James Frecheville is very good as the ex-soldier who formerly experiencing the horrors of Afghan war , then he is shocked by the famine's destruction of his homeland and the brutalization of his people and his family . Hugo Weaving is terrific as a two-fisted soldier with moral values . And other actors as Freddie Fox , Stephen Rea , Barry Keoghan , Sarah Greene , Jim Broadbent are frankly fine . It packs adequate and atmospheric cinematography by Declan Quinn , made on location in ordinary Irish landscapes as Connemara, County Galway, Kildare, and Wicklow, Ireland. The sound is extremely good with a rousing musical score by Brian Byrne and evocative songs. The motion picture was well directed by Lance Daly (Life's a Breeze, The good doctor , Kisses, The Halo Effect , Last Days in Dublin).
Based on historical events about ¨The Great Famine¨ also known as the Great Hunger, the Great Starvation or the Irish Holocaust and sometimes referred to as the Irish Potato Famine mostly outside Ireland, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as the "hard times" or literally, "The Bad Life". The worst year of the period was 1847, known as "Black '47". During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated, causing Ireland's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. The proximate cause of the famine was a natural event, a potato blight, which infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, also causing some 100,000 deaths outside Ireland and influencing much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions of 1848. From 1846, the impact of the blight was exacerbated by the Whig government's economic policy of laissez-faire capitalism. Longer-term causes include the system of absentee landlordism, and single-crop dependence.The famine was a watershed in the history of Ireland,which from 1801 to 1922 was ruled directly by Westminster as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The famine and its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated two million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The strained relations between many Irish and their government soured further because of the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among Irish emigrants in the United States and elsewhere. Documentarian John Percival explains, the "famine became part of the long story of betrayal & exploitation which led to the growing movement in Ireland for independence".The potato blight returned to Europe in 1879, but by that point the Land War, described as one of the largest agrarian movements to take place in 19th-century Europe, had begun in Ireland.The movement, organized by the Land League, continued the political campaign for the Three Fs, issued in 1850 by the Tenant Right League during the Great Famine. When the potato blight returned in the 1879 famine the League boycotted "notorious landlords" and its members physically blocked evictions of farmers; the consequent reduction in homelessness and house demolition resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of deaths.