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Route Irish
Route Irish
– to watch the trailer, click the image
above –
“an intricately
plotted, fast-moving film
with a strong political undertow”The Independent
Of course it has a “political undertow”… that’s
what Ken Loach does!
Chips with Everything
Ken Loach is one of those directors you love or loathe. It depends
how you like your movie… with or without chips! For Ken Loach
has many he carries on his shoulder. Route Irish, whilst perhaps
not one of his best films (very mixed reviews), is definitely
a Loach film and you ignore a Loach film at (if not your peril),
then at the risk of missing a movie from one of today’s AVID’s
– A Very Important Director.
Route Irish – a Troubled Road,
Now Less Travelled
Route Irish is not about “The Troubles” that have plagued
Northern Ireland for these past 30 odd years (and continue so
to do). It refers to the murder-a-mile route from Baghdads’ so
called ‘protected’ Green Zone to the International airport. At
the height of the US attempts to reign-in insurgents and warring
Muslim factions, the American GI’s suffered badly at the hands
of massive IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices), that shredded
soft skinned vehicles such as the HumVee and blew apart armoured
fighting vehicles such as the Bradley.
Murder-a-mile, Route Irish
But this is not just another war movie. Or, to be more accurate…
an antiwar movie. Yes, that’s the message the director and writer
Paul Laverty are trying to get across and, yes, true to form,
the “goodies” with a small ‘g’, are working class and,
yes, the “Baddies” (with a capital ‘B’) are “officer”
class (this is a Ken Loach film), but to reach the emotional
heart of this film you need to focus on the two main characters…
ex-British squaddies, turned private security contractors, played
by Mark Womack and John Bishop.
As the story, set in Liverpool, unfolds through flashbacks of
action on the ground in Iraq, the relationship between flawed
rough hewn hero (Womack) and his decent-but-dead lifetime buddy
(Bishop) delves deep into the psyche of ex soldiers turned mercenaries.
Or, as they are now dubbed – private security contractors. The
life time friendship of these two is sharpened to a fine point
by their common experience as squaddies and the intense comradeship
of soldiers involved in a “shooting war”, But as mercenaries,
they no longer have the safety net of the Regiment to fall back
on. They are on their own as only a £10,000 a month contractor
can be. So, when Bishop’s character dies in strange circumstances
on Route Irish, it is a natural enough reaction for the traumatic-stress-disordered
and naturally belligerently bolshy Womack character, to question
the whole authoritarian explanation.
War by Proxy
And that, perhaps, is the true thrust of Loach’s Route Irish.
For not only does he believe that the Iraq war was illegal and
immoral (amoral?), but he raises the spectre of western governments
waging war by proxy.
For, in a world where sophisticated drones blow up things thousands
of miles from the safe-on-the-ground pilot flying the thing…
in a world where shoot first and sod the questions later private
contractors, take the place of the disciplined and rules of engagement
bound regular infantry… in a world where democracies fighting
terrorists bent on denying basic human rights to their fellow
countrymen, actually kidnap and hold without trial those terrorists
– and to hell with their human rights… in a world where
police officers on the beat and prison officers in Birmingham
are replaced by private contractors… where will it all end?
In tears, according to Ken Loach.
Star Mark Womack, director Ken Loach
and writer Paul Laverty
talk about Route Irish
– to view the video, click the image above –
Route Irish Synopsis
“Ken Loach and regular screenwriter Paul Laverty turn their
attention to the human cost of the privatisation and commercialisation
of the war in Iraq in this gripping story of an ex-soldier trying
to uncover the circumstances of his best friend’s death. Fergus
and Frankie met on the first day of school and the pair stayed
close from then on. Both had a career in the military, and when
Fergus left the SAS and landed a lucrative job with a private
security firm in Baghdad, he persuaded Frankie to join him. By
2007 when the film begins, Fergus is back home in Liverpool, and
learns that Frankie has been killed on Route Irish, the dangerous
road running between Baghdad airport and the city’s Green Zone.
Raging with grief and highly suspicious of the official explanation
of events, Fergus begins his own investigation with the help of
Frankie’s widow, Rachel. Driven by Mark Womack’s forceful depiction
of a man wrestling to come to terms with the fall out of war and
his own complicity in it, this intricately plotted thriller is
one of Loach’s most accessible films to date. It is also one of
his darkest, appropriately so.” Source:
Sandra Hebron British Fim Institute London Film Festival
“…this isn’t a major Loach film.
But its value lies in the director’s alternative emphasis on the
spiritual desolation in the long, shabby aftermath to Iraq.”
Daily Telegraph
Out
Now on DVD |
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– click the image above
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