The Outsider

Grimly authentic by all accounts about life in 1973 Belfast, this first feature about Northern Ireland still seems more a piece of crusading Americana: a young, war-scarred American idealist enlists in the IRA only to find he is worth more to them dead than alive. From there it trades on the sensationalism and realism of its material: torture, bitterness, and sudden violent death. More confusing than illuminating, it's a film which will rely more on its reputation than its achievement; at a time when 'anything goes', is this one of the limits?