1. Recently on Pluto’s Military channel they have been showing a British movie about a soldier left behind in Belfast during the time of IRA/British upheaval in early 70s. It was a brutal time. Has anyone seen it? Is it close to what really happened during this time period?
It was hard to follow the conversations, and sometimes didn’t know who was who.
tacfoley— seems to me you were there. Any input?

2. Been watching videos of Simon Mann. Seems he’s a lucky man all things considered. Is he considered a hero or just a lucky bastard?

I just watched this movie a couple months ago and liked it...not Academy Award type acting or production, but still a compelling story worth a watch. Anymore, I pretty much watch most movies, especially foreign movies, with the subtitles on and so, while I agree that the British and Irish accents were a tad difficult to understand during some of the conversations, it wasn't a problem for me with the words on screen.

Although I remember the conflict mentioned on the news frequently in those days I was too young to be able to have any understanding or provide any context on just how accurate the plot was. In fact, thinking back to watching the movie, I think one of the things that appealed to me about it was that it gave me at least some sense of a conflict I know so little about.

As portrayed in the movie, it was certainly an urban combat environment with the local population (and fellow countrymen) hostile to the young soldiers, fresh from training, ordered to quell the uprising...not to mention the various IRA factions and their infighting, it certainly seemed like the confusion depicted in the movie and not knowing who to trust could be possible.

Without giving away one of the plot twists, the end of the movie did leave me wondering if such Intel/ Counterinsurgency ops were actually conducted by the Brits on their own soil.

Plenty of FAL action in the movie and while I couldn't ID a few of the handguns I think I saw a Browning Hi-Power in one or two scenes.

IMDB: '71

Edited: to add IMDB link

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Modern Day Savage,

Saw it with a British friend who served there at the time and is rather a niggler about details in war movies, but was overall impressed with the accuracy. He also enriched the scenes with a veteran's comments, like when an ambiguous character gets somewhat regrettably shot: "The Lord giveth, 7.62 taketh away."

Great movie! Saw it in an Indy theater while on a business trip. If you check out the books “Say Nothing” and “Secret Victory”, they give fascinating insight into the intelligence operations the Brits ran against the IRA.

For a stomach turning movie about IRA member Bobby Sands hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison, find the movie "Hunger", 2008.

I could not watch the complete movie.

I watched this a while back on Netflix. I thought it was quite good and supposedly it is very accurate too.