'71

Swift and exciting, with no taste for the usual war movie heroics, first-time feature film director Yann Demange's film belongs on a short list of immersive, rattling, authentic fictions right next door to the fact of survival inside a war zone.

[An] excellent, tensely controlled thriller.

Republicans or loyalists, Catholics or Protestants – this film is not about political or religious trenches. People died, but it’s more than the bombs, bullets and bodies. The more fascinating damage was done to psyches and souls, and Demange, with ’71, comes for yours.

The setting may be Belfast ’71, but Demange’s sensibility — first-rate suspense coupled with black-and-white politics — is much more James Cameron ’86.

A master class in structure, a meticulously constructed period piece, a powerful anti-war film, and rarest of all, a thriller whose tension and suspense feel genuinely earned.

Last seen in “Starred Up” and Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken,” O’Connell continues to bring equal measures of toughness and vulnerability to his characters. Despite his good looks, there’s an everyman’s quality to him, which he uses to full effect in ’71.

Demange is a strong storyteller and masks the script’s tendency to nod to every opinion and social division by offering a masterclass in tension as soon as his dramatic bomb starts ticking.

One of the most intense and deeply immersive films I've ever watched. I would wholeheartedly recommend this film to anyone with even a passing interest in war films.

I really enjoyed this film and thought the acting by Jack O'Connell was superb, he played a young inexperienced soldier thrown into a desperate situation excellently. Its a gritty, tense, movie and once it got started I was engrossed until the end. Its a very believable story, and doesn't take sides in the conflict, its more of an anti-establishment film and shows the corruption on both sides. It has a great story, excellent cinematography and superb acting, I would recommend it.

first 30 minutes hooks you but to be honest the movie doesnt explain the context of the rebellion situation very well, so if you dont already know whats going on via your history research youll be lost.

’71 is a ball of confusion - much like war. This anti-war film is a day in the life of a young British soldier trapped behind enemy lines. With so many characters hunting him down- why, who is fighting for what - and how - is hard to track. And subtitles could save solid performances lost on American ears because of thick Irish brogues. Yet after the smoke clears, first time feature director Yann Demange is a career to follow - his horrific shock and awe moments are more powerful than American Sniper.

"’71" was written by Gregory Burke and directed by Yann Demange. It stars Jack O’Connell who portrays an accidentally abandoned British soldier during the conflict in Belfast and how he attempts to survive in this hostile Catholic environment as he tries to rejoin his regiment. More than anything, the film seeks to examine the deep seeded hostility and social unrest among the British Catholics and the differences even amidst their own leaders and followers. Unfortunately, the film is weak in this regard and never stays with one character long enough to investigate and understand his or her`respective motivations and beliefs. The film is also burdened by the fact that the thick Irish brogues make it difficult to understand what the characters, especially the key ones, are saying. English titles certainly would have helped.. A loose script and difficulty in knowing who are and who aren’t the good guys makes this movie more of an effort to watch than to enjoy. I give the film a 6.0 rating for the one thing it does do is afford some insight into the circumstances that befell Belfast and how one British soldier spent a night there in the year 1971.