This movie is not just a movie.
It is a true story.
But it is also not just a true story.
It's the story of injustice,
government overreach,
abuse of power by the police...
It's the story of the worst brought out in humans,
A story of Heroes -
and of Cowards.

source

In 1974, Gerry Conlon moved from Belfast to London, in the hope to escape the violence that had been a daily scene in his hometown.
A useless war among people of his own country, between people of his own country, fuelled and lead by the British empire, who have been out to destroy the Irish people as a whole for many years. A war stamped as a religious one but that was nothing more than a power and land grab, and an attempt to divide and conquer the Irish.
It worked...

At the age of 20, Gerry Conlon, together with Paddy Armstrong, Paul Hill, and Carole Richardson, was arrested. The Guildford Four were accused of the Provisional IRA bombing of a pub in Guildford in October 1974. A crime they didn't commit.

Conlon's father Giuseppe Conlon, was arrested when he left Belfast for London to visit his son in jail. He was part of the Maguire Seven, seven people who were arrested for making the bombs, used in the bombings. He died an innocent man, 5 years later, locked in a cage like an animal.

The movie, In the Name of the Father, tells their story.

The Movie's Cast

Daniel Day Lewis plays Gerry Conlon, while Pete Postlethwaite takes on the role as his father, Giuseppe Conlon.

I think they both gave an exceptional performance, however, something that has always annoyed me about movies set in Ireland, Northern Ireland or, for instance, Scotland, is that the actors just never quite get the accent right.
I'm Dutch, and if I can hear it, then Hollywood hasn't done their jobs right.
Why not hire actual Irish or Northern Irish actors to do the job? The country has many!

That, to me is a minor flaw, that turns into a big one once you know and hear it. There's no way to unhear it.

The other thing that they didn't get quite right is the fact that they changed and romanticised the story.
Conlon never shared a cell with his father.
If you think about it logically, that makes sense. The British police were torturing the accused to get a confession. They were abusing them while they were in prison for all those years, so it wouldn't make sense that they'd 'do them a favour' by putting father and son in a cell together.

The Story

Nevertheless, the story does tell us what happened from the moment the Guildford Four, and the Maguire Seven were arrested, the abuse of power by the British police, who had permission by the government (lead by the infamous Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher) to torture in order to get a confession, their trials, and eventually, their release 15 years later.

They've done a good job at showing what anguish and heartache there must have been during all of that time.
But of course, Hollywood shows it in a romantisised manner, so I'm sure their suffering was actually much much worse.

When you look into the lives of those who were released after so many years, you can see that they most likely didn't lead happy lives, as pretty much all of them died within only a few years after their release, either through illness or otherwise.

What I love about the Movie

History repeats itself. At the time of the 'troubles', a whole nation was treated unfairly, people were imprisoned for things they didn't do.

This story isn't the only one.

Only a few years after the Guildford Four were imprisoned, members of the Provisional IRA told their lawyers that innocent people were in prison, meaning so much as that they were confessing to the crimes. Nothing has ever been done with this information.

No one has ever been found guilty for the bombings.
The police involved weren't either.

Without trying to get too political: I have seen what's been happening in Ireland over the last few years.

History is repeating itself but it's hidden in a way that people won't or can't see.

When Bobby Sands died of hunger strike in a British prison, the people of Ireland said: Never forget! But they have forgotten...
Forgotten that they once had the Irish Fighting Spirit. That spirit has been supressed for so many years. Let's hope it can still be awakened...

“When you tear out a mans tongue, you are not proving him a Liar, you’re telling the world you fear what he might say”! Gerry Conlon.

"I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land." Bobby Sands.

I am leaving you with a passionate & powerful speech by Gerry Conlon at Trinity College, a few years after his release.
Never Forget!