Fifty Dead Men Walking

Despite the still smouldering political context (the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’); despite the charismatic lead performance from Jim Sturgess, and erratic but watchable support from Ben Kingsley; and even despite the grimly compelling source material from Republican informer Martin McGartland (on whose book the film is based); despite it all, Fifty Dead Men Walking just doesn’t work.

It hits crisis point midway through the second act. By then we’ve seen cheeky Belfast chappy McGartland, as played by Sturgess, facing off against the ‘occupying’ British forces and wooing the local ladies (step forward Nathalie Press as Lara) with equal gusto. He falls in with the neighbourhood Provos, but is soon recruited by a Special Branch honcho codenamed ‘Fergus’ (Kingsley) to inform on his terrorist brethren. Naturally, before you can say ‘deep cover’, Martin is in deep shit.

And yet, unlike the protagonists of other deep cover staples (Donnie Brasco, The Departed, Traitor), Martin acts without heroic motive. He is ideologically nationalist, and a self-declared hater of ‘the Brits’. Yet he informs. For what? For money, of course. The movie, being a movie, hates this. It tries instead to make Martin excessively charismatic, to distract us from his grubby reality and his dramatic inertia.

Everyone he meets, men and women, swoon (in one hilarious scene, some tough nut Libyan arms dealers, instead of kicking him to death, submit to his charm). But still, the movie is hamstrung. By Act Three, it drops all pretence of caring, and simply throws the thriller handbook at the screen – including a harrowing supporting role for Rose McGowan (playing an IRA Mata Hari called Grace), and a bullet-ridden car chase that features an ambulance and a machine gun. Piffle.

Kevin Maher

Anticipation:

Great festival buzz. Finally, the truth about The Troubles.

Enjoyment:

A slow slide into the bog of cliché, formula and disappointment.

In Retrospect:

So many chances, wasted.