15 | 1h 39min | Action, Crime, Drama | 10 October 2014 (UK)
Director: Yann Demange
Writer: Gregory Burke
Stars: Jack O'Connell, Sam
Reid, Sean Harris
Dramatic.
Plot
Gary Hook, a new recruit to the British Army, is sent to
Belfast in 1971 in the early years of the Troubles. Under the leadership of the
inexperienced Second Lieutenant Armitage, his platoon is deployed to a volatile
area where Irish Catholics, Republicans, Ulster Protestants, and Loyalists live
side by side. The unit provides support for the Royal Ulster Constabulary as it
inspects homes for firearms, shocking Hook with their rough treatment of
civilians. A crowd gathers to protest and provoke the British troops who,
though heavily armed, can only respond by trying to hold the crowd back.
One soldier is hit by a rock and drops his rifle to the
ground. In the confusion, a young boy seizes it and runs off through the mob.
Hook and another soldier, Thompson, pursue him. As the crowd's protest
escalates, the soldiers and police pull out, leaving the two soldiers behind.
Hook and Thompson are severely beaten by a mob, until a sympathetic woman
manages to calm things down. However, Thompson is suddenly shot dead at
point-blank range by the Provisional IRA gunman Paul Haggerty. Hook flees
through streets and back alleys and hides in an outhouse until dark.
A Protestant youngster brings Hook to a local pub that
serves as a front for Loyalists. There, Hook glimpses a Loyalist group in a
back room, constructing a bomb under the guidance of Sergeant Lewis, a member
of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), the British Army's covert counter-insurgency
unit. Hook steps outside the pub just before an enormous explosion destroys the
building, killing or injuring many of those inside, including the young boy who
brought him there. Unaware that the Loyalist bombers have blown themselves up accidentally,
the Provisional IRA and Official IRA factions accuse each other of being
responsible for the bombing.
Two Catholics, Eamon and his daughter Brigid, discover Hook
as he lies in a street unconscious and injured by shrapnel. They take him to
their home in the Divis Flats. Eamon, a former army medic, stitches Hook's
wounds.
Despite the IRA's having recently taken control of the area
from the OIRA, Eamon contacts senior OIRA official Boyle for help, expecting a
more humane solution than the IRA faction would allow. Boyle, less radical and
violent than the younger Provisional IRA members, tells Captain Browning,
leader of the local MRF section, of Hook's whereabouts and asks in return that
Browning kill James Quinn, a key leader of the younger IRA faction.
Quinn and his squad have been tailing Boyle since the pub
explosion and saw him visit Eamon's flat without knowing why he was there.
Sensing danger, Hook flees the flat, taking a Ka-Bar style knife he finds in a
bag. Hook then eludes Quinn’s men but, unable to evade Haggerty, stabs and
kills him.
Quinn's group captures Hook and takes him to a hideout.
Quinn orders Sean, the young boy who in the early neighborhood persecution had
hesitated to kill Hook, to murder him. When Sean hesitates, Quinn prepares to
execute Hook, only to leave when Browning's group arrives. Sergeant Lewis of
Browning's group shoots Sean, to Hook's horror. Lewis then attempts to strangle
Hook to prevent him from informing others about the bomb.
As Lieutenant Armitage and his men enter in support of
Browning, Armitage sees Lewis' attempt to kill Hook. Sean raises himself and
shoots Lewis dead before being shot again, this time by Armitage. Browning
finds Quinn, and rather than arresting him, tells him Boyle wants him dead,
then lets him go. As Quinn leaves, Browning tells him he will be in touch soon,
and he expects him to be helpful.
Hook is returned to his barracks. Later, despite a formal
complaint by Armitage, the commanding officer dismisses the incident involving
Hook, Lewis, and Sean as a confused situation that merits no further inquiry.