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About halfway into In the Name of the Father I decided
that this had to be based on a true story. Turns out it is. Had
to be – no one sits down and writes a story like this. A
fiction story would have been a lot tighter and a lot stronger.
We’re supposed to excuse the weakness here because this
is a "true story".
In the Name of the Father is not necessarily a weak story
though. It keeps our interest through the intriguing primary character,
Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis), an Irish lowlife who somehow
gets charged with some terrorist bombings in England. Even though
he has nothing to do with the incident, he is brought in, beaten
and threatened until he signs a paper admitting that he did it.
Gerry finally signs when they threaten to kill his father, Giuseppe
(Pete Postlethwaite).
Somehow, it’s not quite clear exactly how or why, but Giuseppe
ends up with a charge for assistance and gets thrown in jail with
Gerry. The two of them do their best to survive in jail together
while Giuseppe contacts an English lawyer, Gareth Pierce (Emma
Thompson), to help them keep the case alive. Fifteen years pass
and Gareth finally uncovers evidence that will set Gerry and everyone
imprisoned with him free.
Daniel Day-Lewis is just fun to watch as the intense Gerry Conlon.
He really brings Gerry to life, but the problem is, we’re
not sure quite what kind of life that is. The only real change
in character that we see in Gerry is in his attitudes toward his
father. Gerry had grown up with bitter feelings toward his father,
which are revealed throughout the narrative, but ends up fighting
of behalf of him. Gerry’s change of heart seems to come
simply as a result of living with him for so long in prison and
growing closer to him. We never really see the change. We don’t
know why it happened or how it happened, and so fails to be as
affecting as it might have been.
The story, as a true story, is an interesting piece on the British
legal system. This didn’t happen in the chambers of the
Inquisition during the middle-ages. This is the 1970’s.
Knowing that this is a true story makes it startling to know that
something like this could occur in a modern country in a modern
age. And not just the legal system, but the whole Irish-English
chaos all around. The power of the armies to kill at will seems
like a foreign idea to a first world country.
But this interest only goes as far as history and sociology. It
doesn’t hold up the same amount of interest as a story.
The whole production, nevertheless, is well filmed and fantastically
acted – and that makes the film interesting enough in itself.
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