The Devil's Own

A Hollywood blockbuster in which Northern Ireland comes over as the usual assemblage of gentle natives, scheming Brits, down-home knitwear, and gunfire stilling the plaintive sound of the uileann pipes. His fisherman dad a victim of the 'security forces', IRA man Pitt takes the battle to the sanctuary of the US, where he plots a missile shipment from a safe house set up by republican sympathisers. His unwitting host, decent Irish-American cop Ford, is kind enough to offer shelter to the young man from a troubled homeland, but as the visitor settles in, an ominous shadow is already looming over his Transatlantic sojourn. The tension between the dedicated terrorist and the family nest that might yet redeem him proves the piece's strongest dramatic suit, buoyed by Ford's believable performance as the hard-pressed NYPD man trying to do the decent thing against the odds. Otherwise, lacking the adrenalin of an out-and-out action movie, and without the intelligence to be much of anything else, the film has nowhere to go. Pitt's accent, most convincing when he says 'aye', is somewhat tested by whole sentences.