Flawed, but Still Worth Viewing

This is not history, but it is awfully convincing. The story and legend that has grown up around Michael Collins is rather a fetching idea for a movie, and for the most part Neil Jordan does a tremendous job in portraying the "Big Fella".

Most of the congratulation goes, of course, to Liam Neeson in the role of Michael. He is wonderful in the part of the Irish revolutionary, and he manages to imbue Michael with the force he needs and yet retains the sympathy of the man. Slight infractions occur, things are romanticized and there is at times some rather unbelievable dialogue, but all in all Neeson is excellent.

Another standout is Aidan Quinn as Harry Boland. Quinn, who is obviously of Irish extraction, certainly looks convincing in the part, and manages a pretty fair Dublin accent to boot. I think more could have been done with his character in the movie, and less with that appalling romance with Kitty Kiernan, who I'll get into shortly. Quinn's character could have become the villain and didn't, and we get a very nice portrayal of a man conflicted: his country on one side, his friends rather suddenly on the other.

Alan Rickman is very good as Eamon De Valera, I read that he studied speeches of the real man to get the accent and speaking style correct. However, I believe that the character and the man are victimized in this movie, which seems to be in search of an Irish villain where there was perhaps not one to be found. Dev becomes a grandstander and a rather unbelievably selfish man who seems to be existing only to prove himself against the more popular Collins. It is suggested that the entire Irish civil war, and the source of the conflict existing to this day, is actually the result of De Valera's pettiness when he saw the Irish people supporting Collins rather than him. I find this a rather easy scapegoat, and I cannot think that a man who led Ireland for almost 40 years would have been this jealous and childish. And I certainly don't believe that De Valera was in on the plot to assassinate Collins.

Stephen Rea's performance is great as Ned Broy, the brave Irish policeman who turned informant for Collins. The rest of the acting is also first-rate, except...

I have nothing against Julia Roberts as a person or an actress. But I do not think she should have played Kitty Kiernan. I don't even know if Kitty should have been in the movie at all, because the parts with her in them are mostly stilted and boring anyway. But regardless of the romance's relevance, there still should have been an Irish actress playing an Irish woman. No amount of dialect coaching in the world is going to cover up the fact that she's American, and in this case her dialect isn't even that good. I can name at least 7 Irish actresses that would have been wonderful in the part, and many more actresses than that who are at least from the surrounding British islands. This trend of hiring Americans to play other nationalities has always irked me, and in this case it really backfired.

Students of Irish history should enjoy this movie, if they ignore the boring parts. Fans of Neeson will also like his performance in a movie where he actually gets to be Irish for once. Kids under 13 or so shouldn't see it, because it's terribly violent with a great deal of shooting. It's nothing stomach turning, and nowhere near as violent as it could have been, but it deals with a horrible time in history and I wouldn't suggest children sit through it.

All in all, the movie is still well worth watching, if nothing else but to get a sense of the Irish problem as it existed in the early part of the century. 1916 is still considered a watershed year for the Irish independence movement, and this film's dealing with the following horrors which finally resulted in the formation of Ireland as we know it is very important. I enjoy this movie and have watched it many times; I have half-jokingly called it Braveheart for the modern Irish citizen. It rather accurately portrays the problems and the difficulties that the Irish faced in being forced to choose between peace and war, between Britain and independence. It could have been better, but as it is it's still pretty darn good.