Film Reviews

Route Irish

• Rating:
• Director: Ken Loach
• Starring: Andrea Lowe
• Details: UK/France/Italy/Spain/Belgium / 109mins (16).

"If they didn't support al-Qaeda before, they did afterwards." Ken Loach follows up comedy-drama Looking For Eric with this pointed anti-Iraq film that not only tackles the violence meted out by the occupying American and British soldiers but also the chaotic plans to instil order and the guilt of those returning home.
Fergus (Womack) is an ex-SAS officer who turned freelance private security contractor to cash in during the Iraq war. He is back in Liverpool for the funeral of best friend Frankie (comedian Bishop), whom Fergus cajoled into joining his unit before he retired. Frankie was killed on Route Irish - a road that links Baghdad with the airport, the most dangerous road on the planet - but something about his death doesn't sit right with Fergus. When he anonymously receives a mobile phone in the post with a video showing Frankie protesting the senseless murder of a family by his unit, Fergus sets about taking down whom he feels responsible for his best friend's death.
Although Loach's previous outing Looking For Eric dealt with depression, it was deemed whimsical by some, so the hard-hitting Route Irish should please his fans. This thriller is an angry, frustrated film that's pretty full on from the get-go. Not only dealing with the workings of grief, Loach gets under the fingernails of guilt: Fergus was the one who convinced Frankie to return to Iraq, he missed the desperate pleas for help Frankie left on his phone, and he can't shake that he's falling in love with Frankie' partner Rachel (Lowe). Guilt, and the efforts to make right what one does wrong, are beautifully realised as the movie thunders towards its unexpected climax.
Womack is front-and-centre throughout and his nervous energy carries Route Irish through when Loach succumbs to less-than-subtle tactics. The water-boarding scene would be guilty of that - it's heavy-handed and yet still doesn't have the impact that Loach would desire. The threat of the Fergus' all-seeing, all-knowing corrupt unit don't have the danger the director would hope for either.

Review by Gavin Burke