Review of Michael Collins (1996) by Allen G — 03 Oct 2013

Some bad Irish accents aside, this is a well-acted and relatively well put together factual drama. It has the big-budget experience, and is a little too by-the-book as a result, but it does an acceptable job in explaining the basics of the conflict in an entertaining way. It doesn't feel particularly finessed and it's a bit like a tidal wave with its progression- rushing forward while trying to squeeze out as much dram as it can. While it's maybe overly-ambitious in that regard, it doesn't fail to offer a watchable film that doesn't take too much artistic license with its premise.

It's visually a very strong film with a real feeling of time and place and good action scenes that are based on force rather than straight-up gore. The plot takes the most interesting elements of the real events and plays about with some here and there as you'd expect. It's a bit safe and stringent with its portrayal of Collins I'd argue, it'd be nice if it dug a little further and gave us more than just this heroic-martyr portrayal. The love interest doesn't seem to fit and definitely feels like filler- surely there's enough with the vicious politics and war, it's hard to justify the undercooked love story on the side- it feels like nothing more than a sloppy attempt to tug at the heart strings.

The characters are stretched just right and it makes for some real tension within the performances rather than just the storyline and the dialogue has some nice moments even if it's relatively uninspired for the most part.

It does what it says on the tin but it doesn't stand out- it feels the same as any other historical drama, just this time with a less-covered subject matter and some better visuals.