Customer Reviews

Resurrection Man [Region 2]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

RESURRECTION MAN is based on the book by Eoin Mc Namee,which in turn,is based on the Shankill Butchers who terrorised Belfast from 1975 to 1977. Victor Kelly(Stuart Townsend)hates Catholics with a passion.His mother(Brenda Fricket)thinks the world of him.One night,he carves up an innocent Catholic walking home from work into bloody shreds. Reporter Ryan(James Nesbitt,WAKING NED)is determined to unmask the killers,even though he is a drunk who beats up his wife. Notable for Townsend's chilling performance,RESURRECTION MAN is very noir but at times is a bit unpleasent. Not ahorror fim,more of a drama.

I bought this video because of Stuart Townsend. I wanted to see every movie he's starred in. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it is. It's definitely one of his best performances. He's frighteningly believable as a ruthless killer. In every scene, I immediately searched for him, knowing that, albeit disturbing, I wouldn't be able to look away. Very, very intense film. Well worth the money. Each time I watch it, I see layers of meaning that I didn't discover the last time. Paying attention to the scenes of his mother and father give further insite as to how and why he came to be such a disturbed man. Stuart Townsend deserves an award for this performance. Although I've seen him in numerous other movies including comedies, I still believed that he was Victor Kelly the Ruthless Killer in this movie.

This movie is based on the novel of the same name by Eoin McNamee, which in turn is based on the rampage of a gang of serial murderers known as the 'Shankill butchers,' who were members of a Protestant terrorist organization that operated in the city of Belfast in northern Ireland during the 1970's and early 80's. This gang randomly abducted, sadistically tortured, using methods that would have made Jack the ripper proud and then executed upwards of 30 innocent Catholic boys and men. They were led by a 5 foot 6 inch sociopath named Lenny Murphy who is depicted in this movie as 'Victor'. He in turn had a handler who is depicted in this movie as 'McClure,' but was in real life according to historian Martin Dillon in his book, The Trigger-men, "a notorious paedophile evangelist, William McGrath, a member of Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church...[and]...a British Intelligence asset from the mid1950's (Dillon, pg. 26)."

The actions of Murphy and his gang as dramatized in this movie were sanctioned by the leadership of the organization he worked for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and were sold to the rank and file and their community as a method of cowing, intimidating, the Catholic minority of northern Ireland into submission. So that they would not have to give that minority the right to vote, an end to gerrymandering, equal housing, equal employment opportunities, and civil rights in general. However as one can ask any British soldier returning from Iraq, were the Shia cowed by the secterian murders perpetrated against them by Al Qaeda who are Sunni? I think not. Sectarian murders are designed, as McGrath and the leadership of the UVF would have known, to plunge a society into a full blown religious war.

Lastly, I did not write the above review to excuse or diminish the acts of terror committed by the IRA many of which were also sectarian.

Although you would not know it from the movie, this is really a dramatic interpretation of the Shankill Butchers, a group of sadistic killers who tortured, murdered, and disfigured innocent Catholic citizens during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The main character in the movie, Victor, is based on real-life mass murderer Lenny Murphy, a member of the Protestant loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunter Force (UVF).

I found the movie to be engrossing and fast-paced. All the leading characters were believeable. The most distrubing part of the movie - which echoed real life events - was that so many people knew who Victor was and what he was doing. Victor's father knew he was a mass murderer, but did nothing about it. Scores of people were witness to Victor's brutal beatings of innocent men and cheered him on. While this may seem like a horrific fantasy in the movie, this really happened in the mid-1970's and early 1980's as elements of the Protestant community in Northern Ireland explicitly supported Lenny Murphy's murder campaign.

In the movie, Victor is guided by a "handler" who is, presumedly, a senior member of the UVF who encourages and facilitates Victor's murderous spree since the killings advance the UVF political agenda. However, Victor, gradually becomes uncontrollable, murdering fellow Protestants and even other UVF gang members. In the end, the Provisional IRA hit squad that pumps Victor full of lead comes as a relief to the viewer. The movie makes it clear that Victor's handler sets him up - Victor has become a political liability.

This was an excellent movie and I would have given it 5 stars if it was placed in better context. Unless you are from Northern Ireland or read Martin Dillon's book "The Shankill Butchers", most of the political/historical/military nuances are lost on the viewer.

(On November 16, 1982 a PIRA hit squad shot Lenny Murphy 20 times at close range. Most researchers believe a senior member of a Protestant loyalist paramilitary passed the PIRA specific information enabling the hit. Murphy - whose father, ironically, was of an Irish Catholic background - died instantly.)

The violence in this movie makes it not for everybody. The story of a good-looking, charismatic psychopath who seems to enjoy gory killing, not only of random victims but also anyone who crosses, or is perceived as crossing, him. The cast is excellent, including Brenda Fricker as the adoring if idiotic mother and a number of able Irish actors familiar to viewers of Irish and British films--James Nesbitt, Sean McGinley, John Hannah (o.k., Scots too). However, the star of this bloodbath is the most riveting--Stuart Townsend, whose dark good looks lend themselves admirably to the role of the black-clad killer, leader of the "Resurrection Men"/Shankill Butchers and darling of his mum. Not really an enjoyable movie but an interesting one.