Fifty Dead Men Walking   Starring: Jim Sturgess, Rose McGowan, Ben Kingsley and Kevin Zegers Metrodome RRP: £15.99 MTD5469 Certificate: 15 Available 07 September 2009

Martin is a wise-arsed petty thief, on the streets of Northern Ireland, during The Troubles. Defiantly apolitical he neither likes the occupation of the British army nor the activities of the IRA, following the wounding of his friend. When he is arrested for a petty crime British intelligence uses the opportunity to recruit him to spy on the IRA, in return for money and goods. His intelligence quickly sees him climbing the IRA’s hierarchy, but with the number of operations which he is informing on, discovery is never far away...

Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008 - 1 hr, 52 min, 45 sec) is a powerful drama directed by Kari Skogland from her own screenplay. The film is based on the book by Martin McGartland and the title refers to the number of men he thinks are alive today due to his activities. The film gained four awards. Although the movie is based on real events it has been dramatised, therefore it cannot be viewed with the same veracity of truth as one would expect from a documentary. Ultimately, although the film was inspired by Martin's life, he disowned the finished product.

Martin is depicted in the film as courageous and resourceful; though even with the internal logic of the film I found it difficult to understand how the IRA had not caught him sooner. Jim Sturgess certainly has the acting range to take his character from streetwise punk to troubled informant, though even at the end I wasn’t convinced that he engaged in his espionage for any deeply held political views, rather than for the financial gain. He is certainly cajoled and pushed by his handler Fergus (Sir Ben Kingsley) into greater and greater reckless acts, each one of which increased the danger to his life. Fergus does redeem himself, in the eyes of the audience, as he is the only person who cares whether he survives being uncovered.

The film’s narrative does not really take a stand on the rights and wrongs of the struggle, in fact neither side, the IRA nor the British, come out of the film particularly well. This may be because the film does not bother itself with the rights and wrongs of the struggle, rather spending its time on Martin's journey through a world gone insane. In the end, with little commentary, both sides of the conflict are depicted as brutal and amoral.

The film's structure does have its problems as it opens up with him getting shot, but hold on this is based on a book written by someone very much alive. So, the journey to discover whether he survives is a little pointless as you already know at the outset that this is the case, which does drain the film of some of its potential suspense.

Along with the two major characters, the film has some strong performances by the supporting actors, especially Natalie Press as Martin's girlfriend Laura and Rose McGowan as a sort of IRA femme fatal. As an action thriller the film works well, even if the denouement is a bit of a foregone conclusion. As a political thriller its failure to explore any of the issues which caused the fighting often reduces the protagonists down to two dimensional bad guys.

There are audio options for either an English 5.1 or 2.0 stereo tracks with optional English subtitles. The disc comes with a full length commentary by the director. There is a behind the scenes feature with On Set with Fifty Dead Men Walking (28 min, 17 sec). If you have access to a computer you can read an extract from the original novel. There is a bunch of deleted scenes (8 min, 42 sec) which whilst interesting add little to the finished film. The disc is rounded off with the original theatrical trailer (1 min, 38 sec).

7

Charles Packer