Route Irish (2011)

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I have to confess that I've never been a fan of Loach . If a film director says the most important aspect to film making is hearing if the dialogue is authentic then perhaps the director should be working in radio ? ROUTE IRISH is a film that opened to some bad reviews even from people forgiving to Loach and his politics . Make no mistake the politics here sink the movie which is probably the worst film in the director's long resume One can't help thinking if the problem is the premise or the plotting . It's certainly a combination of both and both faults can be squared at the feet of screenwriter Paul Laverty who wants his cake and eat it by giving us gritty kitchen sink politics in a BOURNE type of plot . You can perhaps see a Hollywood type of blockbuster where George Clooney finds his best friend , a security contractor , has been killed in Iraq in dubious circumstances and Georgious George wants to get to the bottom of it . Unfortunately the only person the screenplay seems written for is not George Clooney but George Galloway Mark Womack is cast as anti-hero Fergus Molloy and you got to feel slightly sorry that Womack has not been given a convincing character to perform . Molloy is a veteran of the Iraq war , then he reveals he was in SAS operations but for some ridiculous reason he then spouts slogans that would feel at home at a Trotskyite useful idiot convention " Why would the police care about a taxi driver . There's one million dead in Iraq " Well only if you listen to the discredited figures of John Hopkins University . Most observers including those like Iraq Body Count and Wikileaks which were opposed to the war give a figure closer to 105,000 " I carried out operations with the Americans in Bahgdad . I'm telling you if the Iraqis weren't for Al Qaeda at the time they now will be " Not actually correct . Even today you watch the news and wedding parties in Sunni heartlands have seen massacres by terrorists . The victims are often relatives of Sunni warlords who changed sides during the Iraq insurgency . It must be very painful for useful idiots to learn that if the one thing Iraqis hate more than American neo-imperialism then it's the murderous barbarity by Al Qaeda . AQ failed to take root in the country down to the fact that not even the most misguided Baa'thist nationalist can tolerate them as an allySo in effect the protagonist lacks any credibility down to a lack of back story or consistency . He's impossible to believe in as anything more than a platform for Laverty's political views . And it was this spouting of incredibly unconvincing dialogue that caused critics to suggest Loach and Laverty to part ways . I for one will be happy to see Laverty find his true calling in life which is handing out political pamphlets to equally useful idiots . I also wonder since he's so opposed to market forces if Laverty got paid for his screenplays ? I mean he's effectively saying " Rich people bad . Poor people good " so isn't there something hypocritical afoot ?And perhaps the most hypocritical thing is that Loach and Laverty are profiting from the invasion of Iraq by making a film about it ? They were probably thinking they were ironic in making the water board torture scene but the irony of the whole film seems lost on them

A very strong piece of cinema by Ken Loach, away from his usual social dramas, being this more a kind of war-thriller, but not lacking strong denunciation and great courage. The director uses his camera to denounce the crude reality of contractors behind the real stage of Iraqui war. We get to know the life of these contractors, once simply called mercenaries, working for private security firms, whose acting inside wars seem uncontrollable and out of every rule. Loach wants to display and manages to display things in an objective and cold way, regaining the right perspective, showing that although in a war context it is difficult to take the right perspective, there is always, if we want to be honest, a well-cut border between good and evil, good people and bad people, between right and wrong, and this is the most convincing point through the movie. It's difficult to have a conscience with a gun or a bomb in your hands, but when innocent people are killed, and when your conscience prevails, one has to come to terms with it in some way, and the price to be paid may be very high. It's a very harsh movie, it has the crudity of a documentary piece, in search for as much as verity, that's why the more entertaining elements, such as the thriller one, and also the love between Fergus and Frank's wife is treated in a cold way, as if love cannot side with such atrocities. Certainly a thought-provoking, very actual movie which again raises many questions and doubts about the legitimacy of a "just war".

This anti-war film, if I may classify it in that way, presents a perspective that is very different from any existing anti-war films produced by Hollywood. It shows that: no heroes in this film; no sound solution to resolve the injustice in the system; the expert fighter trained and produced by the war system can fight back, but resulted in double/triple tragedy. The investigation of Frankie's death did not start by an American Senator; instead, it was doubted by the death's best friend, a lad who's also been a soldier. The protagonist had / tried to have sex with the death's wife, but it wasn't straightforward (because he was trained to be a fighter). Apart from one conclusion, the film blurs the line of justice and injustice in the war system. That unquestionable conclusion is that: the war on Iraq is inhumane and contractors are unnecessary evils.

The private companies with special tasks in Iraq are since long a problem. They aren't bound by the rules which regular armed forces have. They also exist in Britain and this new Ken Loach movie is about them.A taxi with two children is destroyed. Later one of the contracted soldiers is killed and his friend tries to find out what happened. Who are the bad guys here? That warhead in the barrack or somebody or somebodies much higher in the hierarchy? This is not a typical Ken Loach drama, since it's on the surface more of a typical war thriller than an outcry about social injustice. But social injustice becomes the main theme. Loach is one of the few remaining outraged society commentators. We shall be glad we have him.