'71 movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews....

'71 is a recent military thriller (note a war movie) starring Jack O'Connell, Sean Harris, Richard Dormer, and Charlie Murphy. The film follows a young British soldier in 1971, who was assigned to Belfast during the street riots and IRA conflict in 1971. As you could have guessed, things don't exactly go according to plan, and he's accidentally abandoned, and has to fight for his own survival against people who want him dead. The film is directed by Yann Demange, and is his first film as a director.

Back in January, when I saw Unbroken, I mentioned in my review that Jack O'Connell showed a lot of acting chops. In '71, it's a fairly similar performance that as seen in Unbroken, with the character going through a lot of bad things, and a lot of pain. One thing that I can say about this guy, fairly universally about all his performances, is that he does a fantastic job of looking like he's in a lot of pain. And being set over the course of a single night, any injury this guy has lasts for almost the whole movie, and he does a really good job of showing that.

This movie also does a really good job of getting you into the movie, engaging the audience, and keeping them sucked it for it's 90 minute running time. The story is really simple, and it never gets too complicated for its own good, but is never so easy to read that any plot twist could be seen coming from the start. The action in this movie is also really good, despite having a few moments of really bad shaky cam here and there which kind of bugged me. The action scenes are dark, gritty, and realistic, so real that it not only feels like it's really happening, but the intensity of the situation effects you just as much as it does to the characters on screen.

A problem I've found with a few recent films (hint, Insurgent) (hint hint, The Gunman) is pacing, or lack thereof. Thankfully however, '71 is not like those, and is really well paced. This is one of those rare films where the intensity never seems to cool down, but instead just keeps building up the intensity, in a way that it makes this movie never seem like it has any downtime. Throughout this whole movie, I was never bored, I never felt like the film had slowed down its pace. The stakes were always higher from one scene to the next, right up until the end.

Final Rating
'71 is a fantastic thriller, with great action scenes, good acting, and good direction. The pacing in the movie is seemingly non-stop, and the grittiness is at a constant high. Normally, I'd recommend movie I'm giving this much praise to pretty much everyone, but71 is a really dark and gritty thriller, which could lead to some finding it a little unpleasant. However, if you're ok with dark & gritty, I'd say absolutely go see '71, it's worth it.

'71: 4.7/5