(In the Land of Saints and Sinners [Robert Lorenz, 2023] and The Last Rifleman [Terry Loane, 2023])

The cinema of Northern Ireland has been defined to an overwhelming degree by the Troubles (c. 1968-1998). Given the violent, internecine and protracted nature of the conflict, this is understandable. While such a limited focus has been arguably detrimental to the explorations of broader themes and concerns, it has also produced a significant and enduring body of films that have sought to engage with the causes and consequences of the conflict from a variety of perspectives. Key films in this tradition include Odd Man Out (1947), The Crying Game (1992), Hidden Agenda (1990), Bloody Sunday (2002), Hunger (2008), and’71 (2014) among several others. These films, however, often reflect the vision of filmmakers from outside Northern Ireland – whether from Ireland, the UK, or further afield – who have sought to represent stories of inequality, protest, oppression, and resistance over the course of three decades.

2023 marked the 25^th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a momentous milestone celebrated across both sides of the Irish Sea through various media and public events. In this context, two films – one co-written, the other directed by Northern Irish filmmaker Terry Loane – were released. While these films do not explicitly engage with the present-day political landscape, and differ considerably in tone and audience targeting ambitions, they can be seen in their combination of narrative and institutional elements as illustrative of a post-conflict cinema. Both films centre on ageing male protagonists grappling with the violent repercussions of their pasts as British soldiers and both, thanks to the involvement of Northern Ireland Screen and other state agencies, are embedded within the broader success story of Northern Irish cinema post-Belfast Agreement. Finally, produced for small screen distribution via Netflix and Sky Movies respectively, they reflect the evolving platform economies of contemporary Irish cinemas, addressing both local and international audiences through strategies such as casting, genre, and intertextual references.

In the Land of Saints and Sinners generated considerable mainstream media attention in Ireland upon its release in September 2023, despite forgoing a theatrical release. The film began as a project for young screenwriter Mark McNally during his studies at Queen’s University, before being developed by Belfast-based Prodigal Films (Geraldine Hughes and Terry Loane) and produced by Facing East, an international finance company with offices in Zurich, Hong Kong, and Beijing. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the film was released on Netflix in Ireland and the UK, with limited theatrical screenings in the US and other European territories before reaching streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and Apple TV+ globally.

Set in 1974, In the Land of Saints and Sinners follows Finbar Murphy (Liam Neeson), a World War II veteran who has retired to the remote coastal town of Glencolmcille, County Donegal, after the death of his wife. Living in the guise of a bookseller, he has secretly worked as a hitman for underworld boss Robert McQue (Colm Meaney). However, in the film’s opening, he experiences a profound moment of reckoning, and decides to retire from violence. His plans are soon disrupted by the arrival of Doireann McCann (Kerry Condon), a ruthless IRA cell leader responsible for the deadly Belfast bomb explosion that opens the film. As McCann and her gang take refuge in Glencolmcille, Finbar uncovers dark truths about her brother Curtis, leading to a violent confrontation between the two. In the film’s final moments, Finbar abandons his past life and leaves behind the possibility of a future with his neighbour Rita (Niamh Cusack).

Neeson has, of course, been a major star for several decades thanks to his international breakout role in Schindler’s List (1993) and more recently his prolific casting in action films following the success of Taken (2008), an action thriller which seemed destined for straight-to-video release but spawned two sequels and completely changed the trajectory of his career and star persona. While the earlier film took advantage of Neeson’s physical presence and natural authority to create the celebrity persona that would lead to further prestige roles associated with a variety of patriarchal figures of moral authority (Michael Collins, Kinsey, Star Wars), Taken led to roles set in a fraught and dangerous present and where his “unique set of skills” as an ex-CIA operative would inevitably be rooted in violent reprisal.

Neeson’s casting in The Land of Saints and Sinners balances these trajectories, offering an adept mobilisation of his transnational action role persona while also offering intertextual resonances with earlier Irish and American cinema, most notably The Quiet Man and the American Western. Like Sean Thornton (John Wayne), Finbar Murphy is another “quiet man”, seeking to escape a life of violence in an idyllic and remote Irish setting. As with Thornton and the subsequent Ford/Wayne character Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, he has experienced the violence of war but wants to go “home”, a personal space symbolised by the nurturing presence of a good woman (Cusack) who cooks him dinner and teaches him gardening. Like Edwards (and to a lesser extent Thornton), he is an outsider drawn back into violence one last time for the sake of the community.

Set against the backdrop of the dramatic and beautiful landscapes of Co. Donegal, the film’s visual style reflects these Hollywood antecedents. Director Robert Lorenz, known for his work with Clint Eastwood, and cinematographer Tom Stern, who has also collaborated extensively with Eastwood, use a muted colour palette of greens and browns to convey the rural, timeless nature of the Irish setting. Widescreen shots and frequent use of extreme low and high angles evoke the tension between wilderness and civilization central to the Western, which along with Finbar’s preference for rifles, frequent scenes in pubs/saloon, Diego Baldenweg’s melancholic Celtic-western score, further underscore the film’s thematic kinship with the oldest of Hollywood’s beloved genres.

But the screenplay nonetheless contains details that add historical specificity and resonance to the narrative. “The war, it turned me into somebody I didn’t recognize”, Finbar says wistfully. While this refers to the experience of WWII some quarter of a century earlier previously, it clearly suggests the “war” fought by the men of violence in Northern Ireland from a similar distance. A brief exchange during target practice between Finbar and his friend Vincent O’Shea (Ciaran Hinds) adds further context to the post-war masculinities to which Northern Ireland might yet give rise. As they do some target practice Vincent says:

You know, I never knew the hell of war that you did. For me, the liberation of France was a load of faffing about, if I’m perfectly honest [But] I was determined to help fight those Nazi bastards, even if it meant siding with the English.

Both these proud Irishmen fought for the British army even though they were mocked for it at the time and could potentially be punished for it now (in the diegetic 1974). Vincent became a Garda Síochana:

And that’s why I wear the uniform, you know? I know right, I know wrong, all right? And you need the black and white, what with the state of the north at the minute.

Finbar took advantage of his “unique set of skills” after the war, but he too admits that “I’ve seen enough fighting for a lifetime”. Neeson and Hinds speak here as veterans of WWII but of course they are both, in reality, friends and veterans of the Troubles. Their ageing characters, inflected by their lived experience, communicate a weariness with the violence of the past and a desire to move beyond it just as the Troubles was reaching its bloody peak.

In contrast, The Last Rifleman is set in the present and directed by Terry Loane from a screenplay by Kevin Jackson who, like Mark McNally, is an emerging Northern Irish screenwriter with little experience or reputation. Jackson submitted the script to an open funding call from Northern Irish Screen (NIS). As with In the Land of Saints and Sinners, NIS played a key role in developing the project and leveraging the region’s post-conflict production context (funding, facilities, good will) to attract another Irish actor with an international reputation – Pierce Brosnan – to a story that creatively reimagines the bonds and boundaries of Irish identity after the Troubles.

The Last Rifleman centres on Artie Crawford (Brosnan), a 92-year-old WWII veteran who, as the film opens, is living in a care home in Northern Ireland. After his wife’s death, he ignores all concern and advice against the move and sets off alone to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The film follows this pilgrim’s progress across Ireland, as a stowaway on the ferry to France, his encounters in Normandy with fellow veterans from both allied (US) and enemy (German) armies, and his eventual repatriation and welcome home as a “hero”.

The film is “loosely based” on the true story of ninety-year-old British veteran Bernard Jordan who, in June 2014, also departed his nursing home to attend the 70^th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France. The Last Rifleman departs from the story’s origins in relocating the care home from Brighton to Belfast. This decision by screenwriter Jackson fundamentally alters the story, bringing layers of geographical and cultural complexity to the narrative that both reflect and amplify central concerns of the Good Friday Agreement. En route to the WWII commemorations, Artie must first travel through the Republic of Ireland, encountering sympathetic southerners as he goes. While this initially seems to delay unduly his – and our – encounter with the commemoration events, it adroitly lingers thematically upon the constitution of the Agreement to explore how Northern Irish identities may be constructed as “British, Irish, or both” (Costello 2022). More than that, however, it tentatively explores how residents of southern Ireland might encounter and accommodate Britishness into their sense of identity at a time when national reunification is routinely mooted. Brosnan’s Artie may be old and unthreatening, but the sight of a former British soldier travelling alone through the Irish countryside in the care of locals is radical for its rarity.

Following his wife’s death, Artie is seen unearthing various letters and mementoes from under the bed, including his war medals and a British passport. These, along with news reports on the impending commemorations, act as a catalyst for his adventure. Two details bring complexity to what might otherwise be a straightforward establishing context: the news reports are being broadcast on RTÉ rather than by a British broadcaster as one might expect, and the passport is out of date, although Artie has not yet realised the fact. Undeterred by a “big fat No” from nursing home staff, he boards a train from Belfast bound for the ferry terminal in Rosslare, via Dublin. He misses the train connection but is directed to a taxi which will take him to a suitable bus. The driver (Seán McGinley) offers characteristic taximan banter that simultaneously rejects and respects the basis of our hero’s journey:

Fair play to you. Youse had balls, I’ll say that. You still do, going back there at your age. Though to be honest with you, I never liked the British. Don’t get me wrong now, a lot of good men died on D-Day. A lot of good Irishmen too. But the Brits have screwed us over for centuries … But that’s all in the past now, right? … But what you fellas done on them beaches … was a hell of a thing.

The short scene captures not only the Good Friday Agreement’s acceptance of “British, Irish, or both” but also southern Ireland’s more skewed and ambivalent view of the current relationship between northern and southern identities: “The British screwed us over for centuries … but that’s all in the past now, we’re the best of friends, right?” While he is undoubtedly respectful of Artie’s bravery and age, the taxi driver cannot countenance British militarism, even as he offers a revisionist understanding of Irish participation in the fight under the British flag against fascism. Artie wisely doesn’t respond to this complex stew of historical interpretations but is nonetheless touched when the driver refuses to accept payment.

Other complexities delaying his voyage ensue, but Artie eventually makes it to France and the remainder of the film is concerned with the source of his traumatic flashback and the revelation of a personal motivation for return; a desire to visit the grave of a dead comrade and assuage the guilt of a life lived in his stead. We learn that Artie is the final survivor and witness to the horrors of D-Day from his battalion: the last rifleman. It is, thus, of a piece with commemorations and narratives seen across British media and culture in recent years for the Greatest Generation. But as we have suggested, the film’s opening act, and the context of its production, inflect that distinction with more nuanced resonances than if the story had stuck more closely to its source. Returning in a wheelchair to a hero’s homecoming, Artie has become symbolically the last rifleman of the British Army in Northern Ireland, a respected but nonetheless decommissioned remnant of a bygone military era. This is a sentimental but also deeply symbolic conclusion.

Commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Des O’Rawe wrote that while

Northern Ireland’s film and screen industry is regarded as one of the great success stories of the post-Agreement era [the] standard critique of film representations of pre-Agreement Northern Ireland and the Troubles still applies to any number of contemporary examples […] the failure to subvert mainstream conventions and genres […] capable of engaging more meaningfully with the past and Northern Ireland’s legacy of violence.

On the evidence of the two films considered here, shaped by hackneyed genre conventions and the conventional expectations of small screen audiences, post-agreement cinema remains a work in progress. Yet, even as both texts remain stuck in an ongoing fascination with male subjectivities and themes of violence, they demonstrate a desire to recognise Northern Irish identities as plural and an ambition to identify and overcome the traumas of the past. In nurturing local talent and attracting world-class filmmakers to produce entertaining stories a generation after the Troubles, Northern Ireland Screen has a more sustained and sustainable role in making peace work than the fitful and fractious traditional politics of the region.