Board: The Jackal (1997)
Main Boards | Help
Subject Posted by Date
Do Americans realise how offensive this film is?
by j30bell (Wed May 4 2005 02:44:45)
Ignore this User | Report Abuse UPDATED Wed May 4 2005 02:49:37
Presumably not. To cast a convicted IRA terrorist as the chummy, cuddly good guy in this film is tasteless and offensive beyond, frankly, my ability to express.Whatever one thinks of the struggle for a united Ireland, and for the record I’m in favour of a united Ireland, this film’s treatment of the IRA is about as nasty as I’ve seen on film.
For those who have trouble extending their code of morality beyond the borders of the USA, let me just explain. It would be a bit like an English film writing in Tim McViegh as a decent upstanding citizen who was persecuted by the US government for his political beliefs. It would be like a French film arguing that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a political freedom fighter.
This film treats the campaign of murder by thugs without any moral or democratic authority (even among republicans in the North) as some kind of theme park. The only people who can afford such narrow-minded, bigoted views are the pseudo-Irish types who frequent Boston bars, comfortable in the knowledge that they live thousands of miles away from the thugs they send money to.
Time is limited here, so of the thousands of innocent Irish and English people who have died at the hands of these butchers, lets just take the 11 people murdered by the IRA at Enniskillen. Note, the IRA did this by placing a bomb near the WW2 war memorial, timed to go off during a Remembrance Sunday service. The people who died were William Mullen 72 yrs, married with children and retired (Civilian), Angus Mullen 70 yrs married (Civilian), Kitchener Johnson 70 yrs married murdered with his wife Jessie (Civilian), Jessie Johnson 70 yrs married murdered with her husband Kitchener. (Civilian), Wesley Armstrong 62 yrs married murdered with his wife Bertha (Civilian), Bertha Armstrong 53 yrs married and murdered with her husband Wesley.(Civilian), John Megaw 68yrs (Civilian), Edward Armstrong 52 yrs member of the 'Chosen Few' Orange Lodge and a member of the RUCR, Georgina Quinton 72 yrs widow with four children. (Civilian) ,Marie Wilson 20 yrs single and was a nurse (Civilian), Samuel Gault 49 yrs (Civilian). In addition 63 people were injured, seven seriously. In other words the death toll could have been close to 100 people.
I could have taken (but not accepted) Gere’s character had this been a serious treatment of the IRA. But it’s not even that. Gere couldn't even be bothered to do a proper Northern Irish accent (not even a convincing Southern Irish accent) let alone attempt a plausible treatment of an IRA man. It’s just a big dumb backstory in the story of big gay Bruce and his big gay death cannon.
And it’s okay because, as the film makes clear, that butcher Gere only does these things because he really, really believes in the cause. Great! I’m sure the Washington sniper is delighted to hear US citizens are so tolerant. Except of course you’re not are you? Because it’s a different story when it happens to Americans.
combatreview (Wed May 4 2005 05:46:05) Deleted res_evil (Sat Feb 2 2008 21:24:17) j30bell (Wed May 4 2005 08:22:18) Deleted jclayton-2 (Wed Jun 1 2005 09:07:36) gary_overman (Tue Mar 25 2008 05:46:32) SpiltPersonality (Fri Aug 28 2009 00:11:25) Paul_Jay (Thu Jun 9 2005 17:31:34)
Back to the top
Great rant.
No comments:
Post a Comment