A fast-paced, exciting, if not exactly authentic-feeling IRA drama, Kari Skogland’s Fifty Dead Men Walking is entertaining enough to please mainstream audiences. It’s not the artistic success that was Steve McQueen’s Hunger, but it’s not trying to be, either; it’s more in the realm of the traditional informant thriller, well-executed and rousing in spots, with the pretense of having moral complexity that might do the situation justice.
In 1988, Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is hawking stolen clothes door-to-door in Belfast. This is during the height of The Troubles, as the Catholic-Protestant animosity dictates the social layout of Northern Ireland, British troops line the streets, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army escalates the violence. Martin is rather uninvolved in all of this.
His friend Sean (Kevin Zegers), however, is a low-level IRA operative. The Special Branch of British police has been monitoring Sean and Martin on CCTV monitors; an agent named Fengus (Ben Kingsley) has Martin picked up in the hopes of turning him into an informant. Of course, he declines.
Later on, Martin witnesses IRA members put bullets into the legs of a kid who was walking around with a tire iron; the kid happened to be the brother of Lara (Natalie Press), a girl Martin has eyes for. Later on, Martin is offered the chance to work for the IRA, becoming a driver for a high-ranking member (Tom Collins).
Now, informing on the IRA is tantamount to signing his own death warrant, and Martin must know this, but he agrees to do it anyway. The decision is never sufficiently explained. He doesn’t seem swayed by the money, he doesn’t seem to care all that much about the kid that was shot. He doesn’t care for the IRA, certainly, but nor does he care for the British forces. But he aids the British over the years, while rising in the ranks of the IRA and starting a family with Lara.
The titular Fifty Dead Men Walking is the estimate of the lives Martin saved over years; Martin gives Fengus information on upcoming IRA actions, and (mostly) British officers are spared. It’s entirely disingenuous. Martin’s actions directly lead to the deaths of IRA members; some killed by British forces, one is accused of being the spy and tortured to death in front of Martin’s eyes.
A complex equation is needed to determine the actual number of Martin’s Dead Men Walking, but if we take the (reasonable) stance that his actions helped to fuel the war, that number might turn up negative.
Of course, this isn’t the movie’s fault. I have no doubt that McGartland’s book, also called Fifty Dead Men Walking, painted a different story, but the McGartland here is something of a pathetic character, and the film stops short of turning him into a hero. It leans that way, sure, but even as Fengus credits him with saving fifty lives towards the end, we can’t help but think of the lives that he cost, and everything he lost along the way.
McGartland is still living today, the end scrawl tells us, constantly on the move after surviving a 1999 retaliation shooting; he hasn’t seen his family since he went into hiding. He’s also disowned this film adaptation of his novel, calling it “as near to the truth as Earth is to Pluto.” Which is just as well.
It may not be accurate, but Skogland’s film is entirely well-made with one small exception; the action scenes feel haphazard. I’m thinking of one in particular – a chase scene near the beginning of the film. The camera feels artificial, jerking us around left, right, up, down; there’s a sense of rhythm to how a guerilla filmmaker might shoot on the (literal) run, but it feels all wrong when a professional camera crew tries to mimic it.
Sturgess is excellent in the lead; he’s failed to make much of an impression in other high-profile films, but this is quite clearly his best role to date. Kingsley is fine as Fergus, but he’s not really given enough screentime to work with. Minor complaint: the complete lack of Irish actors among the principal cast, which only adds to the level of in-authenticity.
