The Devil's Own
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Movie Reviews of The Devil's Own
Movie Review: I liked it
Summary: 4 Stars
Why are a lof of reviewers trashing this movie because it's not as realistic as it could/should be ? IT'S A MOVIE. Nowhere did it claim to be a documentary. The story line was good and Brad Pitt did a great job. There was nothing wrong with his accent. I think they could of come up with someone better than Treat Williams to play the arms dealer.Movie Review: Not really that 'offensive' at all...
Summary: 3 Stars
This is one tired film... bland, boring and sermonising (bit like this review... if sermonising is a word) it's chief interest lies in its representation of the northern irish problemBrad Pitt's IRA terrorist seems to belong to the cult of the Hollywood Irish republican 'freedom fighter', he is good looking, mild mannered and thoroughly naive in the ways of oraganised crime as represented by Treat Williams (oh Hollywood if you only knew!). Like Richard Gere in 'the Jackal' Pitt is not a bomber but a 'soldier', it seems Hollywood (and they are not alone) believes one to be less human than the other, witness Tommy Lee Jone's 'mad bomber' in the hilarious 'Blown Away'. This is pretty lazy thinking, is it beyond them to write a complex human being capable of taking civilian lives yet who is not a blood thirsty gestapo like sadist? it always strikes me that the american novelists i have read are totally incapable of writing a believable terrorist... well Hollywood has bypassed this problem by not writing a terrorist! I mean i know they are frightened of alienating the audience but it doesn't do 'the troubles' (heh, imagine the israeli-palestine conflict being referred to as 'a spot of bother') and the plight of the northern irish people much justice to be presented with these ridiculous stereotypes, consider this: the IRA have bombed so many civilian targets, their organisation saw this as the most effective method of warfare (and given the British and American tactics in WW2 its hard to square the condemnation of these acts by people in Britain with the popularity of Winston Churchill and the public statue of 'Bomber' Harris) not to mention the amount of civilians they have shot dead (both deliberate and through bungling) and abducted and murdered is it really believable that in such a (relatively) small oragnisation obsessed with causing such atrocities neither the Gere or Pitt characters have been involved in such actions? Besides, sniping at and killing troops whose original purpose was to protect the catholic population from murderous protestants (shades of iraq), is that really so much better than detonating bombs? Well, maybe, the troops were also probably there to reinforce the status quo and following bloody sunday scared, crazed and trigger happy would describe a portion of the British armed forces present in the province (i should imagine most were scared). But better believe you'll never see a Hollywood movie star playing an IRA terrorist who burns down the homes of members of the SDLP (i doubt you'll ever see a palestinian who shoots israeli soldiers in a positive light in a hollywood film either). The talks that lead to the good friday peace accords revealed one of the most intelligent and humane people at the table to be David Ervine, a former protestant terrorist convicted of explosives offences who had broken the cycle of violence that had either began with or been further cultivated by IRA bombings of protestant civilians. While imprsioned he gained an education and realised the full extent of the oppresion of the catholic population.... It would be interesting to see a Hollywood film about protestant terrorists, i get the impression from certain films (like the rancid Kevin Spacey mega flop 'Ordinary decent criminal') that Hollywood is determined to avoid portraying these unpleasant people, they appear in the Devil's Own to kill Pitt's father at the beginning then never seen again, you'd think it was just the british army, intelligence services and the IRA involved in this conflict the way some of these films represent it (seems pretty common for mainland europeans to know the IRA but to not even know of the existence of the groups on the other side).
Aside from this, the fresh faced innocent look of the IRA members (not the hard faced intense stares of those you see released from the Maze prison, don't be fooled, these guys are hard men) and the pantomime MI6/MI5 villain 'I've been tracking these murderous baahstaards...'(but then out of all parties involved i hate british intelligence more than any of the rest... the rest i can understand) what is there to really upset people so much? The relentless oirish pipes on the soundtrack and the Guinness obsession? Brad Pitt's accent? I've heard much worse... With all the fuss surrounding this film it surprises me people don't absolutely slaughter that wretched slanderous piece of fiction that was Titanic where the English (upper class) brutalise the Irish (working class) by chaining them in the lower decks while the ship sank and a british hero is turned into a coward murderer (nice to see they apologised for that afterwards, heh) in order to give the film some kind of deeper meaning and relevant social and political dimension (and a bigger box office).
The film itself isn't much to talk about really... a simple plot is bloated by a good deal of pontificating and is dragged out for 30 minutes longer than it merits, Harrison Ford is his usual concerned and righteous self (he furrows his brow alot and screws up his face), oh for another indiana jones film to rescue him from 'serious' tripe like this, and not much really happens except 2 dimensional characters go around firing guns... But, the reviews on these pages are a real eye opener, in Britain the whispers are that Americans are ignorant of the realities of the IRA campaign and situation in Northern Ireland and deeply biased. Yet I keep reading how people are moved by this film to the point where they intend to investigate and read about Northern Ireland, and that at the moment they cannot offer an intelligent opinion. Its almost a paradox that this is the attitude of the viewer of a film while the views of american and british readers of books on the subject are so repulsive and ignorant (check out the reviews of the Peter Taylor book 'Loyalists' for an example). I thought it was supposed to be the other way round!! Like the previous reviewers have said this is much too complex a situation to expect a Hollywood blockbuster to do justice to it, you must read, and with the initial outlook of newcomers to this subject both at home (Britain and Ireland) or abroad on this page the chances of the current peace being a lasting one are greatly increased
Movie Review: Not As Bad As You've Been Told
Summary: 3 Stars
THE DEVIL'S OWN was as doomed as doomed can be right from the start when you think about it - Ford's unhappiness with his largely supportive role that led to supposedly harmful script changes, Pitt's unhappiness with the entire project and his constant threats to quit, Ford's belief that Pitt was being unprofessional about the whole matter and their subsequent, semi-legendary clashes. By the time the movie was finally finished, most critics and movie-goers, having spent months reading about the problems with the movie and how everyone involved with the movie was unhappy with it, already decided the movie must not be that good.Is it good? It's okay. It's certainly not as horrible as you may have been led to believe, although there is a great deal that's wrong with it. Start with Pitt and Ford, who each turn in fairly lazy performances with the fairly stereotypical characters they're handed (Pitt, the war-torn IRA assassin, and Ford, the all-American family man and good guy cop... yawn). The folks who complain about the portrayal of the Irish and the IRA have a decent point, but you do have to realize this is a Hollywood movie, not a documentary. THE DEVIL'S OWN is more believable, more realistic, and more sensitive than other contemporary "terrorist" movies, like, say, THE SIEGE. Of course, there's Pitt's wildly unbelievable accent, which is more than horrible - it's actually distracting. The dialogue is pretty great, but that doesn't matter when all you can think about is how horrible he sounds. It's bad. Finally, there's the flat, anti-climatic ending, which leaves you with the feeling that the scriptwriter grew tired of the whole thing and just... stopped. The dialogue in the final scene is especially inane and disappointing. How they managed to make such a potentially emotional scene so dull and flat is just beyond me. They just could have done so much more with it.
Really, they could have done so much more with the entire movie. In my opinion, this movie was doomed when they tried to force two big name stars into extremely uncomfortable roles. In Ford's case, it's a supportive role that he subsequently underplayed. In Pitt's case, well... I'm sorry, it's the accent. The movie really needed a more convincing actor for Pitt's role and a more durable, blue collar guy for Ford's part. That, and a more fulfilling ending. Still, the dialogue is fantastic at times and the story moves along at a pretty good clip, so THE DEVIL'S OWN is entertaining enough - enough to leave you wondering how good the movie COULD have been. THREE AND A HALF STARS.
Movie Review: A BLOOPER THAT FORD + PITT WOULD LIKE TO GET PAST..
Summary: 3 Stars
Apart from the notoriously grating Ulster accent that Brad Pitt adopted for this movie, there are several things that drag the movie down. A plot would have been nice for instance. Harrison Ford's character turns out in the end of have been totally skippable, perhaps something written only to inflate his screen time as the 20-million-per-film star. There's a whole dog and pony show with him questioning his own police career after a sour NYC cop incident, etc etc, but it's hard to see how this really made the tiniest dent in the story.
Brad Pitt can't get over his typical I'm-so-suave look that appeals to the middle aged ladies of the world. Simply scrambling your vowel sounds and saying "fook's seek" frequently doesn;t quite make you sound, what,Oirish! It does make you painfully insufferable though.
Thirdly, even more laughable than the accents are the action scenes, which are so poorly choreographed and edited, it's hard to believe the film is a Hollywood product. First there is Sean and Frankie's shootout with "half the fookin' army," which they predictably win -- with a shotgun. Then they escape because the British forget to watch the back door. Hmm. Then, there is the mysterious appearance of a vast forest in the middle of downtown Belfast, into which IRA terrorists can conveniently ease into when cornered. Next there is the shootout with Billy Burke, in which Frankie somehow manages to fire three rounds from a double-barrelled shotgun (taking out a sniper who, oddly enough, falls forward from the impact of a shot in the chest), retrieves his pistol and fires the same shot twice--hitting Billy Burke, who for some reason counted to ten before lunging for his own gun.
Long and short of it, this is a passable movie you could consider renting, but keep your expectations low. Nothing you'd be seen talking about I am sure.
Movie Review: Not as Bad as Some Would Have You Think
Summary: 3 Stars
Not a 1 star picture, either. I think Pitt's accent is alright, he sounds a fair bit like my Irish-Canadian buddy's parents and they are straight outta Belfast. Some of the reviewers here sound like they're looking for any cheap opportunity to slam Pitt rather than constructively criticize the film. No, it does not delve into the intricacies of the situation and history over there but it is a mainstream Hollywood production and not a documentary. Does this represent an arrogance on Hollywood's part? I think that's looking a little too deep but I wouldn't completely discount it; however, a movie like this is made pretty much solely to make a buck. A nice DVD extra would have been a mini documentary on the conflict over there but would you as a Hollywood producer want to touch that? There is some slightly lame subplot stuff and some bad details, like Pitt leaving the cash in the house after the robbery attempt, but on the whole you could do a lot worse with your two hours.