FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING
Directed by Kari Skogland. Starring Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, and Kevin Zegers. Opens Fri, July 31.
***

Wars fought through terrorism and guerrilla tactics are typically dirty, convoluted messes, so it makes sense that any films depicting them as such end up being just as confusing. Fifty Dead Men Walking suffers from an inability to enlighten the audience on the “big picture” of the decades-long fight for control of Ireland, but what it lacks in historical storytelling, it makes up for with intensity, solid performances, and an incredible personal tale.

Jim Sturgess stars as Martin McGartland, a young Irish punk in Belfast in the late 1980s, a time when the separatist Irish Republican Army was fighting both the Unionist Ulster Defence League, who wanted Ireland to stay united with Britain, and the British security forces who had been sent in to maintain the fragile peace. Yes, everyone is fighting everyone, and this complicated situation is explained away at the top of the film with roughly 30 seconds of pieced-together stock footage before the audience is left to fend for themselves and remember which side everyone is on.

Despite McGartland’s Irish heritage and camaraderie with friends in the IRA, his dislike of their brutal methods drives him to become an informer for the British, and he quickly becomes friends with Fergus (Ben Kingsley), the British Special Agent to whom Martin is feeding information. Inevitably, though, his double identity as a mole collides with his family life and McGartland realizes that he is endangering his new wife and child by continuing his snitching.

Based on the 1997 autobiography by the real Martin McGartland — who is still on the run from IRA hitmen more than 20 years after being exposed by the group and tortured before making a spectacular escape — Fifty Dead Men Walking captures the atmosphere of the time, but never clearly conveys what’s actually going on in the war, even though it desperately tries. While the torture scenes, riots, and car chases keep the film intense, there’s so many allegiances and multiple people on multiple sides of multiple fences that, coupled with the thick Irish accents, the film is freqently both difficult and frustrating to follow. It also suffers from awkward pacing, mostly due to the romantic subplot between Martin and his wife. While it’s meant to humanize Martin and add depth to his character, it feels like a clumsy interpolation amid all the people leaping out of windows and teenagers getting their kneecaps shot out.

But even clouded by all these shades of grey, director Kari Skogland (who also made the underrated recent film version of Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel) still infuses her work with a strange lack of moral ambiguity. For her, McGartland and the Brits equal good, while the IRA equals bad, and the Unionists hardly come into play. Even though there’s an admission near the end that, you know, the Brits may have committed a few atrocities of their own and that McGartland, despite the 50 men he allegedly saved, may have killed a few people himself, it’s always pretty clear whom she’s rooting for.

But the film’s lucky charms comes in the form of the cast. Sturgess puts in a career-best role as the smart-assed but dedicated McGartland. He captures both the swagger and naïveté of the 22-year-old Irishman who finds himself in way over his head, while Kevin Zegers matches his talents as McGartland’s best friend, a hot-headed IRA member named Sean. And if you can ignore his ridiculous hairpiece, Ben Kingsley gives one of his better performances of late as Fergus.

Fifty Dead Men Walking takes a pretty classic and easy Hollywood stance when dealing with its protagonist — when in doubt, lionize him. It’s a lot easier than dealing with the moral subtleties of an obviously complex character in an obviously complex situation. The film is good, but not great, and that means it barely does justice to McGartland’s amazing story.