Review: '71' a grim tome from days gone by

Yann Demange's “71” takes us back to the swirling maelstrom of the peak of the civil war in Northern Ireland. Set a year before “Bloody Sunday,” it's an intricate, intimate thriller about a single soldier's nightmare day and night on the front lines.

Jack O'Connell of “Unbroken” stars as Gary Hook, a working-class recruit into a British army still divided along class lines. Hook is shipped to Northern Ireland, where he's exposed to an idealistic, posh upper-class lieutenant (Sam Reid) and the depths of animosity between Catholic “republicans” and Protestant “loyalists” in Belfast.

Lt. Armitage has some sort of “win their hearts and minds” delusion about the Army's “peacekeeping” role there. As they accompany heavy-handed cops on a raid on the apartment of I.R.A. sympathizers, a riot ensues.

When circumstances separate Hook and another recruit from their unit, one is summarily executed and Hook flees for his life, through the bowels of the Catholic stronghold, a day and a night of terror, entanglements and confusion.

Demange, working from a clever, gritty Gregory Burke script, hurls obstacles aplenty at this frightened boy. This last incarnation of “The Troubles” had plenty of infighting, so bloody-minded young turks (Killian Scott plays their leader) are hunting Hook just to execute him, while older, cooler I.R.A. heads (David Wilmot) try to find the lost soldier just to calm the situation.

The foppish-but-humane lieutenant wants to ameliorate his blunder and recover his missing man, but the brooding, brutish head of undercover operations (Sean Harris) has other motives.

O'Connell keeps fear close to the surface of his performance, even as flashbacks suggest a tough background that may play a hand in whether Hook lives or dies.

The violence is immediate and personal. Demange, keeping his camera hand-held, makes this film as visceral an experience as Paul Greengrass's breakthrough movie, “Bloody Sunday.”

Demange's movie isn't nearly as moving as that one. It's more removed, observing and casting blame for that awful conflict far and wide even as it remains fixed on this one young man's fate, making us care about that fate. But “71” is rare enough and good enough to make us long for more thrillers with context and consequences.

Roger Moore reviews movies for Tribune News Service.