Michael Collins
Michael Collins
Neil Jordan's historical biopic of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, the man who led a guerrilla war against the UK, helped negotiate the creation of the Irish Free State, and led the National Army during the Irish Civil War.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedMarch 3, 2025
Rarely does a movie have as much historic accuracy, political insight, character development, and dramatic action as does this film.
The film covers 6 highly chaotic and transitional years in Ireland, from the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin to the 1922 assassination of Michael Collins in Cork County.
Many Americans, even if they are of Irish ancestry, know little of Irish history, particularly the relationship between Ireland and England. Since the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I there has been domination of the Irish people by the English government. After almost 400 years of domination, the rise of the Irish Republic was an amazing accomplishment. Much of that accomplishment must be attributed to Michael Collins, the founder of the Irish Republic Army, and the master strategist in the first 6 years of the rebellion. The film takes us through the final hours of the Easter Rising where the English military suppresses one of the first uprisings and challenges to their authority. The film shows the firing squad executions, one by one, of the leaders of the uprising. The film takes us to the guerilla tactics of Michael Collins, with an emphasis on killing the English leadership in Ireland. As the English send more and more ruthless enforcers of England's power, the IRA carefully kills them and creates chaos in their administration. Michael becomes a national hero but his first diplomatic mission is in some ways a set up. This leads to the political intrigue within the film.
The character of Eamon De Valera, the man who was repeatedly elected President of Ireland, is indeed complex as the film demonstrates. De Valera sends Collins to negotiate with the British under the explanation that Collins has earned this priviledge andthat the English wish to know who is so they can negotiate face to face. Michael is not able to negotiate for the independence of all of Ireland, primarily because the English wished to hold Northern Ireland where the majority of English protestant settlers had lived for generations after generations. However, De Valera refuses to accept a partial victory, undermining Collins' leadership and popularity with many of the Irish people. Very crafty thinking and manipulating were involved in this sequence of events. Was De Valera actually that Machiavellian? The film would indicate so.
The acting is superb, with Lian Neeson, Alan Rickman, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart, Aiden Quinn, and Jonathan Rhys Meyer offering first class performances. Julia Roberts takes an understated back seat which serves the film well. Neeson is indeed highly powerful as the robust manly decisive Collins, a man who goes from being a street fighting terrorist to a hero and statesman. Rickman is super as De Valera. He plays De Valera as calculating, never revealing his whole hand, and extremely strategic. Especially strategic was De Valera's trip to the USA to gain funds and support from Irish Americans. Ian Hart plays Collins' right hand assistant through thick and thin. Hart is superb here. Aiden Quinn plays Harry Boland, a friend of Collins' who competes with him for Julia Robert's affection and then turns on him during the Irish Civil War. A young brash handsome Jonathan Rhys Meyer plays the young assassing who kills Collins as he comes to Cork to negotiate with De Valera. There is so much history to relate that the director and writers wisely de-emphasized the romantic in favor of the historic.
The scenes of Ireland are superb, the cinematography of urban Ireland was exceptional. A very fine film.