First problem with this film: The director. Alan Pakula specializes in courtroom dramas, he has little expertise in conducting action films, and has demonstrated his limited knowledge of both Ireland and the IRA. Second problem: Harrison Ford reprises his Presumed Innocent/The Fugitive/Jack Ryan characters in one ugly mess. Third: The entire Irish sequence is just a badly imitated version of every IRA film ever made. Moreover, the accents are awful, and the scenes grossly unbelievable (which would be alright if they were only entertaining). Since there were few Irish people influencing this film, its blatant lack of realism does not come as a surprise. And after The Crying Game, probably the best Irish film of the 90s, (whose success Columbia pictures was obviously desparate to mimic), Devils own is a pale, easy to spot dummy. If I want to see a cheesy show about the NYPD arresting a black youth for stealing condoms, I'll watch one of the many cop/courtroom programs on network television. But if im in the mood for an authentic IRA thriller, i'll stick to Stephen Rea and Adrian Dunbar in Jordan's 1992 masterpiece.
Review of The Devil's Own
