Review of Bloody Sunday (2002) by Stephen E — 02 Feb 2013

It starts off very slow, but after the first thirty minutes or so Bloody Sunday becomes a powerful, emotional, and painstakingly realistic recreation of one of the darkest days in 20th century Irish history.

The actors are for the most part relatively unknown, but their acting is indistinguishable from reality, especially James Nesbitt who stars. The film is shot entirely with a handheld camera, giving it another layer of realism but without making the camerawork nauseating.

The film is incredibly moving, especially in the last forty-five minutes, and the last scene is absolutely heartrending. This was one of the first movies from director Paul Greengrass, who later went on to direct the fantastic 9/11 drama United 93 and the latter two Jason Bourne movies, and this is definitely among his better films.

Bloody Sunday is not perfect, which the slow first act can attest to, but it is very convincing and very emotional, and its disturbing but affecting as a carefully-made docudrama.