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I rewatched The Devil’s Own the other day, mostly because it showed up as one of the free movies on Amazon Prime. I had previously watched it shortly after it came out and found it somewhat disappointing. I can’t say that the intervening decades have changed my opinion.

I’ve always enjoyed the opening Belfast street battle, and I guess that’s why I find myself so willing to give the movie another go. Yes, it’s silly, Hollywood gunplay – mindless action, but it does entertain. It also leaves me a little frustrated. Really, how does Frankie escape at the end of the scene? If you’re going to bring the military in, don’t you first establish your perimeter?

I recall a story, told to me by the son of an L.A. cop, that ended with the pronouncement that once you bring in the helicopter, the bad guy never gets away. I would think that would apply double in this kind of situation. Leafy backyard notwithstanding, a pair of masked gunmen shouldn’t just be able to just wander off while the army looks on helplessly from the air.

Then again, The Devil’s Own would have been an awfully short movie if the main character was taken down in the opening sequence. So I’m willing to suspend disbelief and allow myself to appreciate the action sequence for what it is. For whatever reason, my enjoyment of this film declines from there. It’s hard to put my figure on why, exactly, but my opinion seems to be the consensus across professional reviews and the general public alike. I think a big part of it is that, having forgiven the movie a little nonsense in that first scene, it continues to challenge your notion of the possible and the probable throughout.

Sampling some of the production notes and trivia, I’ve learned a few things that I didn’t know about when I watched it the first time around. Part of it is that “main character” thing. Who is the lead actor in this movie? Harrison Ford got the bigger bucks, but Brad Pitt’s Frankie/Rory is at the center of the story. The production was rumored to be plagued with fights between actors and presumably this meant Ford v. Pitt. The tale has softened over the years with people remembering the positives, but Pitt was on the cusp of leaving the production part-way through. One version says that the studio held a financial ax over his neck, requiring a payment of $63 million for breach of contract if he left. Pitt, himself, has said he was offered (amiably, in his telling) the opportunity to leave the project and declined.

What is true, and this was known by insiders as the movie was coming out, is that the original script was all-but-thrown-out and a new story cobbled together on the fly. The result was filming that took more than twice as long as planned. Reviewers mentioned that the final product looked incomplete, and part of that was certainly based on the way it had been put together.

It makes me wish I could read through the original script, as it was before the movie was made. One take on Pitt’s version (see above, different accounts conflict) is that his objection was that he signed on to the original script and no longer approved of the new direction. Director Alan Pakula (The Parallax View, All the President’s Men, Sophie’s Choice) said that a big part of the problem is the non-traditional story. The two leading men must eventually have their showdown, but who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? That question has no good answer, which defies the expectations for a Hollywood movie. One reviewer used a line from the movie to explain, “It’s not an American story. It’s an Irish one.”

This seemed poignant as I re-watched the movie. One of the reviews I read flagged this as a “bad movie” because of how it portrays the Provisional IRA in a good light. Indeed, this was an issue at the time – after Princess Diana took her family to a showing at a theater she was heavily criticized. It is an issue that has only grown since the movie has come out. How can a film support a white, good-looking terrorist? Isn’t that beyond the, uhh, pale? Yet, it is this ambiguity that gives the film much of whatever depth it has.

Now, the first thing I noticed when I pushed play the other night is the opening song. Dolores O’Riordan, then at the height of The Cranberries’ success, is singing a song that she wrote. I don’t know if I had an ear for the Cranberries back in 1998, but I didn’t notice her distinctive voice back then. Nonetheless, I probably should have. Similarly, the acting leads are at critical points in their respective careers. Harrison Ford had made the transition from young action hero to middle-aged leading man. He still had a few good movies to come (K-19: The Widowmaker stands out for me among his post 1997 work), but he might fairly be considered as having passed his peak years. Pitt, by my measure, was just entering them. We’d just seen him in 12 Monkeys and Se7en, and may have been beginning to expect bigger things from him than just a pretty face.

For what it’s worth, Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is pretty much the same age as Harrison Ford in The Devil’s Own. How did we lose a quarter of a century? Anyhow…

Is it true that this is “an Irish story?” There is certainly the makings of a decent morality tale – about what it means to be good or bad, and when killing is wrong, necessary, or even righteous. From my scattergun sampling of online comments, it seems that those who’ve lived in Ireland do tend* to look somewhat more favorably on this film than the general population. Related, one complaint from the professional critics was a difficulty in understanding Brad Pitt’s accent – that it was perhaps too much. I never had a problem understanding him, so I’m not sure that is true. This was his first attempt at a “foreign accent” in a major role. I read that the Irish audience found his accent obviously contrived but, at the same time, better than most bad attempts at an Irish accent by American actors.

Watching this movie today, we’re in a very different world than when it was made. I understand that at least some of the script gyrations were due to the rapidly changing situation in Northern Ireland. While the film was being developed, the violence had flared up considerably and that provoked some changes to the story. By the time the film hit the theaters, however, the ceasefires leading up to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement were underway. So much has changed in the last 30 years – both in Ireland and New York, in how the world deals with terrorism, and how it approaches immigration – that this movie must be viewed, now, as a historical fiction. It is a snapshot of a world that no longer exists. In this respect, its lack of realism and historical fidelity is a bigger disappointment that it might otherwise be.

– Photo by Iain on Pexels.com

*Given some of my tirades against misuse of data and statistics, I probably should point out I’m not fooling myself that I can detect any real phenomenon. The most likely explanation for what I’m seeing is that people who like the movie, who also happen to be either Irish or have lived in Ireland (or both), are more likely to mention that connection in their comments. That said, I like to watch films with which I make a personal connection. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone with an ethnic Irish background (which includes me, by the way) would have a soft spot for a film like this one.