Fifty Dead Men Walking

You are always playing a dangerous game when you decide to take a venturesome step into the field of factual drama. In the same way as the rules of physics dictate, to have more of one thing, will detract from something else; if you ply your creation with the factually accurate dates, places, terms and events to the letter, you suffocate the creative and emotional thread that keeps your audience watching; after all, you are making a film and it'll take more than a documentary-style barrage of dates and figures won't keep a movie audience interested. Whilst on the other hand, throwing away all semblance of reality, especially when tackling such a sensitive subject as the Northern Ireland Troubles for the sake of artistic licence, will lose you any credibility, and at worst, cause offence.

Though for everything Fifty Dead Men Walking lacks in terms of technical or historical accuracy, it (just about) makes up for as an empathic portrayal of the characters involved during real life double agent Martin McGartland's stint as an IRA informant for the British security forces.

Beginning with McGartland's (Jim Sturgess) attempted assassination in 1999, the story unravels as a flashback as McGartland lies bleeding in his car after being shot six times. Covering the events of the late eighties and early nineties, McGartland is a happy go lucky young catholic man making a dishonest living selling stolen or counterfeit clothing door-to-door but managing to keep himself clear of either side of the political turmoil going on around him. The British, after some surveillance and coercion, manage to persuade McGartland to use his unique position to infiltrate the workings of the IRA and report their operations and attacks before they happen.

How close to detection McGartland became can be speculated and many of the high tension moments in the film - one where McGartland's Special Branch contact Fergus (Ben Kingsley) visits him when his child is born and narrowly avoids being spotted stands out - could simply have been added for dramatic effect rather than being true events, a quandary of the aforementioned concession of 'truth' and 'artisitc licence'.

Any film emblazoning their open titles with the loaded statement "based on a true story" will face fierce criticism as to how close they stuck to the genuine facts and overlook, in this case, the heart-warming performance of Ben Kingsley as the nurturing father figure to McGartland and his dutiful struggle to protect McGartland and his family when he is eventually uncovered as a 'tout'.

British audiences who are familiar with the events that have blighted Northern Ireland for decades will feel they are being spoon-fed history and may find the portrayals of life in Northern Ireland unimaginative and patronising with other European or US audiences maybe finding some revelation in it. If you lift the muddy, complicated veil of politics away from the film (which pretty much defeats the object of a politically charged film, I know) you have a genuinely beguiling story which certainly doesn't fail to immerse and entertain.