Michael Collins (1996)

After reading through the comments here, I am appalled at the number of people who are willing to take this as gospel - please don't!! The scenes of the Rising and the Civil War are quite accurate (barring such things as carbombs, which someone else has already mentioned) though grossly oversimplified. Kitty Kiernan does not deserve the major part she has been given in this film - Michael Collins was never that interested in women. I have to stress, as someone else has, that there were the Auxiliaries as well as the Black and Tans (so called incidentally, because there were not enough field uniforms to go round, so they were a hodge-podge of different uniforms), and the Auxiliaries, the officiers, were discernably worse than the rank and file. Also, the fighting did nto affect most of the country. A note on the casting - the character of Kitty Kiernan was nto that big, though I think she was given more screen time as she was played by Julia Roberts. Someone tell this woman that she CANNOT do accents. Alan Rickman was more Sheriff of Nottingham than de Valera. Aiden Quinn as Harry Boland wasn't bad, though I would have to quibble about the character, but I feel that is more the fault of the writers than him. And lastly, sorry though I am to say it, Liam Neeson doesn't even compare to Brendan Gleeson's performance as Collins in 1992's The Treaty, even his accent wasn't quite right. For those who would like to know what really happened, I would recomment 'The Treaty', Tim Pat Coogan's biography (though he is a tad biased) and T. Ryle Dwyer's 'Big Fellow, Long Fellow', which is a joint biography of de Valera and Collins. This film is a real disappointment. I would have to repeat Bono's statement - 'I'm sick of Irish Americans come up to me, and tell me about the Revolution back home ... that the majority of people in my country don't want', which, unfortunately are the kind of sentiments that this film has engendered.

Fmovies: Liam Neeson was fantastic as Collins and the rest of the cast where just as good. Just a pity its a fairey story. Another Hollywood TRUE story, as usual why lets the facts get in the way of the story thats why only a 3.

Fiction heavy bio-pic of the man who lived and died for Irish independence.

History on film is a difficult beast at the best of times and no one - and I mean no one - could produce an uncontentious film about Michael Collins: The Irish rebel rouser and politician who helped (the key word) form the first Irish Free State.

Sadly writer/director Neil Jordan takes the view that the history book can be tossed away if it goes against his own agenda or hampers audience sympathy. He created a stick for reviewers to hit him with - and boy did the blows rain down on his head. These blows, alone, might have killed any chance this "difficult" film had at the box office.

(It went down like a lead balloon in America which shows that behind the bluster and flag waving most Irish-American's aren't really interested in their own history.)

If only they had stuck more closely to the uncontested facts film writers would have focused on the good things. Which include excellent cinematography (good use of filters) and first class performances from all bar the all-at-sea (and mostly unneeded) Julia Roberts.

A perfect example of the Hollywood of today: All perfect teeth and good looks, but no ability to do characters or accents. I actually cringed while she was speaking in her "Irish" accent!

(The producers don't help much either by dressing her in a range of expensive outfits that change between shots: Destroying any sense of her being a poor country girl! Indeed scenes of poverty seems to be avoided rather than played upon.)

Liam Neeson was born to play Collins both physically and temperamentally, a dream part for him. There isn't a second that I don't believe in him. Shame there isn't more parts like this for him to play.

I don't mind my country being the bad guy in this movie, because we deserve it. What we did in Ireland will always be a stain on our history, but where is the context? The two countries have always been closely intertwined - not only due to geography but also due to wealth and technology reasons.

Also to be understood is that British troops had no experience of civil war or terrorism. They had been fighting wars against a uniformed enemy that stood in front of them. The people that joined up were often criminals or people that couldn't find alternative employment; or even wanted a bit of adventure in their lives.

Here their enemy dressed in civilian clothes and shot at them in the street (often from point blank range) and then ran. The people they killed were often Irish police or suspected informers. It was very ugly, but it was ugly on both sides.

There was also plenty of infighting (of the literal variety) that was more about gangsterism than Irish politics: A side road this film doesn't want to wander down.

The film also takes the view that "violence was the only path." South African apartheid crashed without the blacks winning any kind of civil war - indeed theirs probably extended the run of the white elite. Times move on, to quote Ghandi, "all tyrannies must fall.... however strong they appear at the time."

Despite everything this is an important film and Neil Jordan's best so far. It has too many little truths about power and real politics to be ignored easily and it does expose one "Irish hero" as a weasel. Watch the film to see which one.

A lot of responsibility fell on Neil Jordan's shoulders making this. It i

Michael Collins fmovies. This film is a brilliant account of the life of Michael Collins. It starts with the Easter Rising of 1916 and ends with his death in 1922. Between that time he managed to negotiate the first treaty of Independence for Ireland. Liam Neeson does brilliantly as "the big fella" and Aidan Quinn also is brilliant at portraying Collin's best friend Harry Boland. Apart from these other great stars in the film are Alan Rickman, Stephen Rea, Charles Dance, Ian Hart and Julia Roberts. Unfortunately some events portrayed in the film are historically incorrect and you get the feeling they were only included to add more drama to the film.

This is definetly a film worth watching and the DVD is even better, featuring a documentary on the real Michael Collins.

As a student of history in Ireland, I was both amused and annoyed by this film. On the first viewing I was confused: much of it was very powerful, especially the 1916 and civil war scenes. My confusion related o the treatment of de Valera, who I have always regarded as displaying great integrity, and the portrayal of Collins's terrorism, which I will come to in a minute. The following fact displays the dubiousness of the basis of this film: Director Neil Jordan displayed on the screen a quote, supposedly made by de Valera about Collins in 1966: "in the fullness of time, history will record the greatness of Collins, and it will be recorded at my expense." This quote is contained only in Tim Pat Coogan's 1990 biography of Collins: he heard it from Collins's nephew, who heard it from Joe McGrath (a former intelligence operative and sometime Minister) who supposedly heard de Valera say it. A third-hand quote produced verbatim after two or three decades. Someone else below has mentioned historical inaccuracies. I would say that what is more important is that history as it was is presented in a manner similar to the presentation of the quote - half-digested, misinterpreted and as orthodoxy. For example: the notion presented by the film that Collins started and organised the highly successful 'flying columns' which carried out devastating ambushes of enemy troops, is erroneous. The officers of the East Limerick Brigade started it, and it spread to the renowned South Tipperary Brigade, and on from there. Then there is the issue of the terrorism practiced by Collins. Was it a characteristic of the War of Independence in Ireland, and was it necessary?

Shooting of spies was certainly carried out in Ireland. It wasn't initiated by Collins, who became Minister for Finance in 1919 (NOT Minister for Intelligence, though he was Director of Intelligence in the army), in Ireland's first independent representative assembly in 750 years. Terrorism? No, it was a widely practiced act of war. The two countries were at war. But Collins, according to one intelligence expert, carried out assassinations of people whose status as spies or traitors has still not been proven.

In fact, his tendency to target his politcal opponents with his gangs during the civil war calls his whole War of Independence status into question. These facts have a tendency to be brushed under the carpet by his legions of fans and consequently by this film. So too his role in the treaty talks. It is not widely known that the terms accepted by the delegates, or terms so similar the difference is hardly worth discussing, were already on the table when the negotiations began by virtue of preliminary talks by de Valera & others. In other words what was accepted was a travesty by any standards. It not only legalised partition (and was the source of 80 years of further bloodshed) but accepted that the rest of Ireland only had status as it was conferred by Britain. Some still believe that de Valera knew that more couldn't be achieved, but there is no basis for this, and having looked at his papers, I believe this is nonsense. Indeed, there are indications (see Hopkinson, 'Green Against Green') that Collins and the head of the delegation Griffith were happy enough with the terms to conspire with Lloyd George and Churchill to blackmail the other delegates into acceptance. What is clear is that both originally favoured acceptance of the original offer - Collins because it allowed the Free State to raise an army (yippee!).
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I didn't know if Hollywood was distorting history but someone who knows the story of Michael Collins assured me this was a pretty accurate portrayal of him in here, which makes this film go even higher in my ratings, because it's definitely entertaining and is spectacularly photographed. There is more blue color in here - beautiful blue - than in any movie I've ever seen. It looks just gorgeous on DVD.

Liam Neeson's charismatic portrayal of Collins keeps you riveted to the screen, even though it's a fairly long movie. Julia Roberts and Alan Rickman seemed a bit miscast. Being American and British, respectively, they weren't quite believable as Irishmen, perhaps because I'm used to hearing them as they normally talk. I also don't like to hear the Lord's name in vain so often as what was in here, but that seems commonplace among the Irish, at least in all the movies I've seen and books I've read (and my relatives, half of whom are Irish!)

Anyway, this is a very interesting story with a nice combination of drama, action and romance. Very much recommended regardless of anyone's stance on Irish-English relations.