The secondary title of this Irish film set in 1974 which is meant to be about Irish history should be “There is an African in the Pub.” He has absolutely NO relevance whatsoever to this film, which I am calling a pseudo historical fiction. Yet, the filmmakers had to stick him in and had to have Liam Neeson’s character Finbar, babysit him throughout, because it is important to them to bypass the real reason we are watching this film – to focus on a part of Irish history.

This African is there because he was tired of the wars in his country – is he thick in the head? Did he not know there was a war in Ireland? He wanted to come there to play violin? Probably even less violins in Africa as there were black people in Ireland in 1974. And considering he is in a town of about 100, he is obviously not made of money, so how did he afford to fly from Africa to an island, approximately 6000+ miles away? And at the end of the movie, Finbar is more focused on protecting him, then the Irish people in the pub. Always to keep him on camera whenever Finbar walks into the pub. After all, this IS meant to be an Irish historical fiction.

Other than this the film was brilliant, which is really sad for the rest of the actual Irish actors and I am assuming local extras. Their history was downplayed by this irrelevant character who matched some DEI quota of having to have a foreigner in the film, even though they had no relevance. Why not just have a zebra walking through town? Make it a nod to Fellini, since he is Italian and also has no relevance to Ireland.

If only they would have not had to do this. What it does is break you away from being focused on a time period and you suddenly see something that doesn’t belong. It is confusing and no different than an actor coming out of character to talk to the camera. But, I see this pseudo history in other countries as well. It is laughable at best, and we shouldn’t be laughing about history. But, if the filmmaker doesn’t want to be taken seriously, why should we?

It is a shame too because the acting was very good, the storyline, minus this bloke – absolutely incredible. Passionate, pulled you in, had you on the edge of your seat kind of suspense drama.

You have a gang of IRA bullies who just pulled off bombing a pub somewhere else and are hiding out here. The female IRA person (Kerry Condon) has a thing for children and old ladies, whilst she has no idea her own brother is physically and possibly sexually abusing his sister-in-laws child (they weren’t completely clear about the sexual).

Finbar is one you might find in a Quentin Tarantino flick. Dark humor. Empathic – sorta – to his victims, allowing them to have one minute of a last word. He also plants trees to help conserve the environment. He cares about everyone, except the people he has been paid to get rid of. Something to do with the IRA, but I was never really clear who was who as it isn’t spelled out the meaning of the killings. Those of us with Irish ancestry, need to look it up I suppose.

Ironically, Finbar has a relationship with a local Garda (Ciarán Hinds), who seems to look away at the end after realizing what Finbar’s role really is. They have a pleasant relationship throughout, but at the end, the Garda is left to show us that he knows what has happened but doesn’t get involved. Finbar also develops a relationship with another paid assassin (Jack Gleeson), and becomes a father type to him. There is a tiny bit of romance, between Finbar and his neighbor, and gratefully the filmmakers didn’t turn this into a sex scene, since they were all about distracting us from the storyline. This would have been equally inappropriate to the film and to the characters.

I’ve given you the heads up. Today’s modern society does not care about integrity, nor do they care about history. It is more important to make them feel good, so if you pretend something happened that didn’t, this is okay to the young ones. To those of us who care about history and the integrity of a film, it does matter. I can’t recommend this film because it isn’t honest and it is really about having a laugh. I just don’t believe that all those men and women, who lost their lives during a 30 year time period of Ireland’s conflict – who like the female IRA character says in the film “Were fighting for Ireland’s freedom,” did it for this pseudo historical drama.