In the Name of the Father (1993)

In the Name of the Father, a nominee for Best Picture of 1993, is a gripping story of a man falsely accused of the bombing of a London pub in the 1970s. It's based upon the true story of Gerry Conlon, who spent fifteen years in prison after he was tortured and coerced into signing a false confession to the crime. Three other people also go to prison for the crime, and Gerry's father and several more are also imprisoned for their alleged complicity in carrying it out. The movie is set during a time when there was great tension between the English, particularly those in London, and the Irish, especially anyone suspected of being a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). What In the Name of the Father does expertly is capture those mutual feelings of distrust.

As Gerry Conlon, Daniel Day-Lewis gives another of his intense performances; he does love to burrow into his characters, and the more complex and complicated they are, the better he seems to like them. As his father, Guiseppe, Pete Postlethwait is a study in quiet dignity. The scenes in prison, where father and son share a cell, are particularly illuminating of the differences between these men. And Emma Thompson provides a couple of sharp moments as the attorney who has taken up the Conlons' case, especially in the courtroom scenes that end the movie.

This is a well-made film filled with a great deal of politically charged dialogue. You certainly get the Irish perspective on the events here, and with the exception of Thompson's lawyer, you get a strong sense that the English people are too filled with their hatred of the Irish and the IRA (and an inability to distinguish between the two) to provide justice. I had a powerful feeling of being manipulated throughout this film to take the side of the Conlons without question. Undoubtedly, they were innocent of the crimes with which they were charged, but the movie is a bit heavy-handed in its depictions of the English. Surely, there must have been some honest members of the British police, for example, or someone who would have taken up this cause before Thompson's attorney appears many years after they have begun their prison terms.

Still, such an approach is understandable, given the predominance of the English perspective in films on this issue. The English have always had a strained relationship with the Irish, particularly those in Northern Ireland, where the early scenes of this film are set. What In the Name of the Father captures, perhaps even more accurately than the events surrounding the Conlons, is the way that the Irish and the English coexisted, frequently with violence and almost always with distrust. It offers us a window into a time that we in the United States probably know too little about.