Because I am a great fan of several Neil Jordan movies - I've seen four of them so far and loved them all - and because I've always appreciated Liam Neeson's style of acting, it's only natural that I wanted to see this movie. Whether this movie is historically spoken completely accurate or not, didn't really make much of a difference. If I want to know more about a certain fact in history, than I buy books that have been written by people that know all about it. When I watch a movie, I want to be entertained first, which certainly doesn't mean that I don't care about historical accuracy at all of course. For me it's just not the most important part in this kind of dramas.
From 1916 on Michael Collins stands on the barricades to fight the British army that occupies Ireland. He is one of the men that want to establish a new government, while throwing out the British and creating a completely independent Irish republic. But when he sees that their dreams will never come true, he starts negotiating with the British government and is able to establish the Irish Free State, which means that they are more or less independent, but still have to answer to the British crown and will lose Northern Ireland. That's why some of his former allies turn against him, blaming him for the loss of something that could never have been won...
Whether this movie is completely accurate or not, I can not judge about. I believe all those people who say that it isn't. They probably know a lot more about it than I do. But that's not very important to me this time. As I said earlier in my review, when watching a movie, I don't just want to be informed, I want to be entertained. And entertainment is exactly what I got. The story on itself is well-written and well-paced. I can't think of one moment that I was bored, but I certainly know that I was very interested while watching. That's also thanks to the very fine performances by all the actors. Liam Neeson was as great as always, but Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, Alan Rickman,... certainly weren't any less good. I even appreciated Julia Roberts, although in my opinion she was the least of all the big names in this movie. She didn't seem to fit in completely, but her performance was good enough, so it didn't spoil the entire movie for me.
If you can see past the fact that Neil Jordan probably changed some parts of the truth in order to get a better movie and if you rather like to watch this movie for the very fine acting, the nice images,... than to get a history lesson, than you'll agree with me that this movie still deserves a rating in between 7.5/10 and 8/10. If you can't, than I wouldn't even give it a try.
From 1916 on Michael Collins stands on the barricades to fight the British army that occupies Ireland. He is one of the men that want to establish a new government, while throwing out the British and creating a completely independent Irish republic. But when he sees that their dreams will never come true, he starts negotiating with the British government and is able to establish the Irish Free State, which means that they are more or less independent, but still have to answer to the British crown and will lose Northern Ireland. That's why some of his former allies turn against him, blaming him for the loss of something that could never have been won...
Whether this movie is completely accurate or not, I can not judge about. I believe all those people who say that it isn't. They probably know a lot more about it than I do. But that's not very important to me this time. As I said earlier in my review, when watching a movie, I don't just want to be informed, I want to be entertained. And entertainment is exactly what I got. The story on itself is well-written and well-paced. I can't think of one moment that I was bored, but I certainly know that I was very interested while watching. That's also thanks to the very fine performances by all the actors. Liam Neeson was as great as always, but Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, Alan Rickman,... certainly weren't any less good. I even appreciated Julia Roberts, although in my opinion she was the least of all the big names in this movie. She didn't seem to fit in completely, but her performance was good enough, so it didn't spoil the entire movie for me.
If you can see past the fact that Neil Jordan probably changed some parts of the truth in order to get a better movie and if you rather like to watch this movie for the very fine acting, the nice images,... than to get a history lesson, than you'll agree with me that this movie still deserves a rating in between 7.5/10 and 8/10. If you can't, than I wouldn't even give it a try.