The Devil's Own (1997)

THE DEVIL'S OWN is an extreme film . Extremely bad that is , and also extremely offensive to anyone to have known the sorrow of the " Troubles " . I'm still trying to work out what the most unlikely bit of the film is , the British MI6 agent who's the baddie or the battle scene at the start of the film . I'll go for the battle scene that leaves several Brits and IRA men dead . I was going to type terrorists instead of IRA men but THE DEVIL'S OWN doesn't really consider the IRA to be terrorists , more like feisty freedom fighters who like to take on the fascist British Army in a toe to toe battle that resembles the battle of Mogadishu. Well if you can be bothered to look up the death toll for September 1992 you'll find that a total of 8 people ( That's eight real people - not Hollywood extras ) died in the troubles that month , all civilians . There's also something disgusting about the fact that we see hunky Brad Pitt - Who cannot do an oirish accent at all - playing another IRA man . Why do Hollywood movies always cast a hunk like Sean Bean or Richard Gere as an IRA man ?

If you're confused by my disgust at THE DEVIL'S OWN well imagine this : A film starring hunky George Clooney as a freedom fighter for Al Quida who's on a mission to buy stinger missiles to shoot down American helicopters in Afghanistan and it's up to a murderous agent from the fascist CIA to stop him by liquidating the gallant freedom fighter . Do you think Hollywood would produce something like that ? I rest my case

Fmovies: The initial problem I had with this film is the fact that an IRA soldier, in New York to buy and transport weapons to bring back to Ireland, would bunk in with an NYPD Sergeant and his family. That sounds like asking for trouble to me. Not a smart move. I can't imagine the IRA sanctioning a rather reckless move like this. The large amount of money Pitt's character was carrying, and the importance of these weapons making it to Ireland had me shaking my head in disbelief that Rory (Pitt's character) would take such a risk of trying to pull this off right under this police sergeant's nose.

Some on this site have complained about Brad Pitt's Irish accent, however I thought Pitt was easily the best part of this film. He succeeded in creating a troubled, but somewhat sympathetic character. It is his performance that I even gave this film a 4. Treat Williams was also very good as the mean, black-hearted weapons contact for Pitt's character in New York.

I had enormous problems with Harrison Ford's efforts in this movie, if "efforts" is the right word. When Ford first burst on to the scene many years ago, he looked like a solid, creative acting talent. However, in recent years, he has taken on this goody-goody, moralistic, cutesy-pie, boy scout character style which he seems to hide behind, and it's just ridiculous, and reflects really lazy acting (see: "Air Force One" and "Patriot Games", to name two). It is truly irritating and disappointing, and brought this movie way down in my view.

I had trouble swallowing the premise, but Ford's performance just made this cringe-inducing to me.

This is a very mediocre movie, and a bad sign-off for Alan J. Pakula (who died a year later in 1998 from a car crash). Listen to Brad Pitt's awful accent for a few moments and you'll get a clear idea that this film is going nowhere.

It caused some controversy on release because of its simplified view of the IRA/Britain terrorism and some people (particularly Europeans I suppose) took offense to the fact that Brad Pitt's character is given a "motive" for what he does... and the film seems to sympathy with him.

Brad Pitt hated the film and Harrison Ford and him battled on set over who would become the focus of the film itself (apparently Pitt became upset because the script was re-written and his character was given less screen time).

I only recommend it to people who haven't seen many movies. Why? Because then the recycled dialogue, characters, plot, and performances may seem fresh.

But as it stands, "The Devil's Own" is a poor example of mediocre film-making. Or is that a "good" example of mediocre film-making? Whatever it is, the film is not anything special, and certainly not anything that hasn't been done before.

The Devil's Own fmovies. Considering that the era of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland has largely come to an end, and the IRA is rarely heard from anymore (the fight over Northern Ireland's status having been successfully moved by the peace process into the political realm) this movie has a somewhat dated feel even though it's not even 15 years old yet, dealing as it does with a young IRA operative (Brad Pitt) who comes to America to buy weapons for use back home. On his arrival, a sympathetic Irish-American judge arranges to have him stay with a local Irish-American police officer (Harrison Ford), who isn't aware of of the IRA connections. Eventually, the arrangement comes to endanger the lives of the officer's entire family.

I'll grant that the two lead performances were pretty good. Pitt as Francis (or Rory, as he called himself in America) and Ford as O'Meara both seemed to capture their characters quite well. The first hour or so of the movie was rather slow-paced, but it picked up once O'Meara put everything together and figured out what Rory was all about. I was somewhat put off by what I thought was an implicit pro-IRA sentiment in this. At the movie's opening, Francis is sitting at the kitchen table at the age of 8 while his father says grace before a meal, only to have presumably unionist gunmen break into their home and shoot him in cold blood. It seemed to me that this was almost a way of justifying Francis/Rory's later actions, and it's even said at one point that "if I had seen my dad shot dead in front of me ..." Sorry, one can't justify those acts. "I'll do this because you did that," which means that a cycle just gets started that's hard to climb out of. Both IRA and unionist gunmen should have been ashamed to call themselves Catholic and Protestant, their actions having nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, whom both Catholics and Protestants claim to follow.

Pro-IRA sentiment aside, I still thought this was a rather weak movie, saved somewhat by Pitt and Ford.

What is it with American-Irish? Some of their richest and most respectable members have poured millions of Dollars into the IRA, harboured some of their members, idealised the notion of a "fight for freedom". Believe me, as a Scot, with William Wallace et al I've always had a certain affinity for heroes. But the IRA are no heroes. They've become Northern Ireland's drug-dealers, extortioners, gangsters. The people of Ireland as whole have had enough of them and their way of terrorising innocent people. May it be the IRA or the UDP, the notion of a Catholic V Protestant jihad has long ago turned into a simple cycle of self-perpetuating violence. These men and women are no longer anything resembling the oh-so glorious Michael Collins, they are terrorists who don't know when to quit and never knew anything but how to fight. These men aren't the Brad Pitts of the world, nor is the British Army an oppressor anymore (considering that over 90% of the locals support the Army, simply because it provides protection). Yet in 1997 we still got the great toss of this movie, showing us how brave Irishmen fight against an onslaught of British stormtroopers and evil S(I)S men. Somehow it seems that America is hell-bent on keeping up the idea of the stiff upper-lip English villain. May it be The Devil's Own, Braveheart, U-571 or most recently The Patriot, Hollywood seems bent on demonising the US' closest ally, both politically and culturally. I may not be a great fan of the English, but even I know what harm stereotypes can do. Perhaps the writer should have gone out to the streets of Belfast and asked ordinary people what they think of the IRA. Perhaps the writer should have also approached a soldier and asked him what it's like to occupy Northern Ireland. Somehow, I have severe doubts that a movie about the post-WW2 SS-"Werwölfe" guerillas would be quite so romanticised.

And this movie has a Riverdance sequence. Oh please....

As a child in Ireland, Frankie McGuire (Brad Pitt) sees his dad gunned down for his involvement with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). As an adult, McGuire has followed in his dad's footsteps. When the IRA decides it needs more firepower, they hatch a plan that involves McGuire going to the United States to pick up a shipment of Stinger missiles. Through American IRA contacts, McGuire adopts a false identity and housing is arranged with a non-involved Irish family headed by New York City cop Tom O'Meara (Harrison Ford).

There is an impression that The Devil's Own is an action film. The Internet Movie Database has it listed as "Action/Drama/Thriller". Although there are some action elements in the film, this is really a tragic drama, almost in a classical sense, and it's best to approach the film with only that genre in mind. The plot is fairly complex and the film tends to move slowly--much more slowly than a typical actioner or thriller.

The heart of the story is McGuire's relationship with O'Meara and his family. All of the other material--the IRA stuff, the mob and terrorist stuff, the New York City cop stuff, and so on, are not the focus. Those elements are present to help establish characterization, to build the relationship and understanding between McGuire and O'Meara, and to provide a justification for the developments in the film, and particularly the conclusion, which all have poignant things to say about the decisions that we make and why we make them.

The film largely succeeds if seen from this dramatic perspective. It's not quite a 10, however, as it always seems slightly distanced from the viewer. It's an 8 out of 10 for me.

(This comment was originally posted on January 16, 2005 and ended with the above. The following was added much later after reading through some other user comments:) We should not forget that even though it takes elements from the real world to construct its story, The Devil's Own is NOT intended to be journalistic or a documentary. There is no claim that it is giving an accurate portrayal of political situations, and it's not intended to campaign for one side or another in a real-world political situation. This is fiction, folks, and should be judged _as fiction_. For that, you should forget about what you know of the real world, and assess the story, images and sounds you experience from your television. Does the story work as a self-contained entity? Are the performances good? Is it visually attractive/rewarding? Those are the kinds of things we should be judging.

For me, The Devil's Own succeeded as a drama about relationships, with its poignancy arrived at primarily by making two people from very different worlds, with very different outlooks, learn to see things from different perspectives.

That's great if you're very knowledgeable about Northern Ireland in the real world and if you have strong opinions about terrorism. However, your knowledge and opinions on that stuff have nothing to do with this film.