Saw this again last night. It's one of those films that stays with you after it's finished.
The story's clear enough although there some fairly serious plot holes, though not enough to derail the film as a whole. And it means introducing spoilers...
It's really the ending which is confusing. Mac phones the mother and says 'They're coming for Colette'. Next scene a car draws up and the mother simply walks out and gets in. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the car had come for Colette. But the mother offers no explanation as to why she's come out and not Colette... which means it was her they were expecting.
Listening to the commentary over it later all becomes clear. The director makes it clear that what Mac really meant was 'They're closing in on Colette'. Then he tells the mother that her daughter was recruited to protect her, the first and main informant. That puts her in the awful position of having to sacrifice herself in order to save her daughter. Off-screen she must have made a call and given herself up, which is why the car came for her, not Colette.
Apparently they wrote 50+ versions of the end and one supposes it all became a bit confused. But that's how creative endeavors often play out.
And we have to assume the bomb in Mac's car was put there by Colette, he having rejected her physically, though not as an agent. While he was walking about (the woman with the dog wasn't her) she must have sneaked it in unseen somehow. That was her thing, after all, a bomber.
There's also the question of how they got the mother to agree to betray her whole family. Did they let her 3 children carry on bombing and killing? Or did they promise, in return for information, not to harm them? That really is quite a hole, I think.
But, apart from that, it is a hell of a film. Some found it slow but that's the nature of undercover films. They aren't action films, they rely on tension, betrayal, never knowing if or when the axe will fall.
Above all, the staging is so true to life as to be painful. Apparently real-life IRA informants have said that too. Really, that whole war, if one wants to call it that, was a very sad, nasty, unpleasant business. And, of course, the IRA rang rings round the organised and trained British army. Just like the Vietcong and the Afghans did to the American forces in their home territories.
Beautifully acted and beautifully shot, it's an anguishing but truthful film.
The story's clear enough although there some fairly serious plot holes, though not enough to derail the film as a whole. And it means introducing spoilers...
It's really the ending which is confusing. Mac phones the mother and says 'They're coming for Colette'. Next scene a car draws up and the mother simply walks out and gets in. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the car had come for Colette. But the mother offers no explanation as to why she's come out and not Colette... which means it was her they were expecting.
Listening to the commentary over it later all becomes clear. The director makes it clear that what Mac really meant was 'They're closing in on Colette'. Then he tells the mother that her daughter was recruited to protect her, the first and main informant. That puts her in the awful position of having to sacrifice herself in order to save her daughter. Off-screen she must have made a call and given herself up, which is why the car came for her, not Colette.
Apparently they wrote 50+ versions of the end and one supposes it all became a bit confused. But that's how creative endeavors often play out.
And we have to assume the bomb in Mac's car was put there by Colette, he having rejected her physically, though not as an agent. While he was walking about (the woman with the dog wasn't her) she must have sneaked it in unseen somehow. That was her thing, after all, a bomber.
There's also the question of how they got the mother to agree to betray her whole family. Did they let her 3 children carry on bombing and killing? Or did they promise, in return for information, not to harm them? That really is quite a hole, I think.
But, apart from that, it is a hell of a film. Some found it slow but that's the nature of undercover films. They aren't action films, they rely on tension, betrayal, never knowing if or when the axe will fall.
Above all, the staging is so true to life as to be painful. Apparently real-life IRA informants have said that too. Really, that whole war, if one wants to call it that, was a very sad, nasty, unpleasant business. And, of course, the IRA rang rings round the organised and trained British army. Just like the Vietcong and the Afghans did to the American forces in their home territories.
Beautifully acted and beautifully shot, it's an anguishing but truthful film.