How you feel about the film will obviously depend in large part on how you feel about The Troubles. And that is an enormous sinkhole of politics and religion. Depending of course on how you feel about that. I used to take sides but now I only just sort of do.
Based on a true story. On the other hand…
wiki
Martin McGartland disowned the film as was reported in the Sunday Times on March 29, 2009. He told the Sunday Times that “they are saying it was based on a true story, but what is the definition of ‘based on a true story’? Is it 50% true, 70% true, 10%?” The Sunday Times further reported that McGartland contended “that the movie is fundamentally a lie that misrepresents his career and his motivation. He believes that if Kari Skogland, the director, had stuck closer to the account he gave in his book and in a BBC documentary, then she would have had a better film.”
What is particularly surreal here is how the men who make these political commitments have to somehow strike a tenuous balance between the personal and the political. Their family and The Cause.
And no qulams about torture here. Everybody uses somebody else to serve their own purpose. It’s a fucking snakepit. A seething malestrom of conflicting goods.
Martin MacGartland at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGartland
trailer: youtu.be/qmQU9R1wYNE
50 DEAD MEN WALKING [2008]
Written and directed by Kari Skogland
[b]Fergus [narrating]: His name is Martin McGartland, and when I met him he was an unemployed Catholic hood selling stolen goods.
…
Fergus [narrating]: Jobs were generally controlled by the Protestants, which meant most of the young Catholic men were unemployed, and angry about it. Martin and Sean have lived on the edge for so long they didn’t know any other way.
…
Fergus [narrating]: I was a peeler. That’s what they call the police in Belfast. I was a Handler with the Special Branch. My codename was Fergus. You see, by 1988, Belfast had been a battleground for 20 years. The Irish Republican Army against Unionist Ulster Defense Force. Both were illegal armies. It was about freedom.
…
Fergus [narrating]: Unionists want Northern Ireland to stay as part of the United Kingdom. Catholic Republicans want free of British rule. Both sides were willing to kill for their cause. By 1969, violence was so bad British troops were sent to keep the peace. They’ve been there ever since. To the IRA, they were also an occupying army.
…
Fergus [narrating]: We had real respect for the IRA as a military force. we sealed the communities. Protestants one side of the wall, Catholics on the other. The reality was we couldn’t stop what was happening… because we didn’t have the minds of the people. In war, truth is the first casualty, and information is as powerful as bullets. Growing up an Irish Catholic lad in a Republican community… where police and security forces were not trusted, Martin had few choices.
…
Fergus: They’re terrorists, killers who’ve found a cause to kill for.
Martin: Terrorists? Is that what you think, huh? Terrorists? Well, I don’t see anyone tearing up your house because you’re lrish…hauling your arse onto the street…getting the shit kicked out of you by soldiers for fun? The Brits have never been in lreland by invitation, so who’s the terrorist?
…
Martin [to Lara]: Look, how did we get from me being thrown out of school to suddenly my belief in God, anyway? Like, I want to know about you, like. Like, what’s your favourite band? Okay, I’m not saying I don’t believe in God. Like, I do believe in God… but He’s probably not a Catholic God. I don’t think God’s sitting on a cloud trying to figure out whether He’s Protestant, or Catholic…or fucking Buddhist either. Everyone’s got these big opinions about how you should live and who you should love. The government, the peelers, the Catholics, the Protestants, the Brits. Any of them is full of it if they think that they know more about you…or that they know more about me or of God than anybody else.
…
Sean: Look…you got to expect a bit of killing and a bit of dying in a revolution. That’s the way things work. Besides, you’re not a man unless you’ve got a cause.
…
Fergus [to Martin]: You don’t get to pick and choose. This is all in. Because I finger you, you’re dead. You finger me, I’m dead…
…
Fergus: I want to show you something.
[He shows him the corpse of a young man]
Fergus: He has a kid. A ma, a da.
Martin: ls he a tout?
Fergus: A tout? He saved at least 30 lives, probably more. He’s a goddamned hero. Your mates tortured him for seven days, 168 hours until we found him. A 400-pound bomb was your mate’s latest gift to the city of Belfast. Seven people died, and you don’t want him arrested?
Martin: Sean is my mate. He’s got two kids from two different women…
Fergus: Aw, give me a hankie.[/b]
But for the radicals it always comes down to the First Cause. And that is their own rendition of what started it.
[b]Fergus: Do you know they’ll hold your head under water till your eyes are spinning? Again and again, for a couple of hours. They’ll squeeze your balls with a pair of pliers. They’ll twist your thumbs out of their sockets…
…
Donovan: Marty…Marty, come here. He’s a tout. He’s a tout. Stuff him.
…
Martin: You knew this was going to happen.
Fergus: And you didn’t? They completely trust you now.
Martin: I had a gun at his head. You said I couldn’t do it. You said I didn’t have murder in me. Yeah, well, I was so scared, I swear to God, I might have done it.
Fergus: I lied. We all have murder in us. The hunters become the hunted, yes.
Martin: Is that what you tell yourself to make it all okay?
Fergus: The price of a conscience is death. None of us can afford it.
…
Lara: Don’t bullshit me. You think I don’t know what you do? It’s the RA, and if not them, the peelers. Between the two, you’ll end up either dead or in jail…You’re going to have to decide, Martin, because we’re not waiting around for the call that they’ve found you in a ditch with a bullet hole in the head.
…
Martin: I’m taking you to Scotland, that’s it. I’m just going to take you and leave. we’re going to get away from all this political shit.
Lara: You’re never going to leave the lRA.
Martin: Oh, no? I’ll do whatever you want me to do at this point. I’m yours.
Lara: Because you’re captured by the anarchy of it all, like the rest of them.
…
Martin: I’m starting to, you know, think that they’re onto me.
Fergus: You wouldn’t be here if they were onto you.
Martin: I’ve not got a good feeling about it. My car’s definitely marked, right?
Fergus:
Yeah, of course. Go home. Hug your wife and baby.
…
Sean: You fucking bastard, you. You’re a fucking tout! You fucking bastard! I’m going to kill you!!
…
Fergus: Oh, so that’s it, is it? That’s how this is going to go down? Ml5 step in, screw up, and I get to eat the bullshit?
RUC Agent: It’s a big picture thing. It was supposed to be an easy bait and switch…and your boy shouldn’t have walked out of there but he did and now there’s a mess to clean up. Don’t be forgetting, you’re one of the good guys. A man of the law.
Fergus: Since when? Since when did this become about the law?
…
Mother: Marty, what’s going on?
Martin: It’s fine, Ma. Listen, it’s all right.
SeanL He’s a tout, Mrs. McGartland.
Mother: There’s no way that’s true. Marty?
Sean: The Special Branch don’t want him anymore.
…
Fergus: If the RUC don’t protect him, Ml5 will leave him exposed…a gift to the lRA… a bait and switch to deflect attention from a plant higher up.
Agent: What’s your stake in this?
Fergus: He was my operative.
Agent: Shit…Look, there’s no way I can get involved in this, for fuck’s sake.
Fergus: Well, how about I go to the press, and we debate this in public?
Agent: You won’t live long enough to do that, and you know it.
Fergus: Martin. That’s his name. Martin. He saved, I’d guess, 50 soldiers, RUC officers, prison wardens. Ml5 turns him into a bargaining chip. He has a girlfriend…a son, and another baby on the way. Look…we uphold the law and break the law in the name of the law. Is that why you signed up?[/b]
Cynicism doesn’t get more calculated than this. The pawns are everywhere. On both sides and within both camps.
[b]Fergus: Call Lara. See if she’ll like the idea of getting married in Scotland.
Martin: You know, you look me in the eye, okay and you tell me what kind of life you think she’d have. No hope, no friends, no community. Always looking over our shoulder, scared to death for them kids. I can’t do it. I really can’t do it. I won’t do it. You know, I thought I was saving lives.
…
Titlecard: Once he was compromised, Martin McGartland was relocated. He cahnged his name and address monthly, yet in 1999 he barely survived being shot 6 times at point blank range by an IRA hitman. In 2003 the Stevens Report concluded there was collusion between loyalist and British interest that led to the murder of innocent people in the 1970s and 1980s. Later that same year it was revealed that a high ranking member of the IRA, who is implicated in the murder of over 40 people, was working for the British during the heights of his IRA activity. Martin is still on the run.[/b]