DEAD SHOT - Mark Reviews Movies

Dead Shot, Quiver Distribution

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | August 17, 2023

The period known as "the Troubles," that euphemism for sectarian violence in and over Northern Ireland and beyond, has been depicted multiple times on screen, and Dead Shot is intriguing and questionable in how it uses decades' worth of political conflict and violence as the backdrop for a competently scripted and more-than-competently made revenge thriller. It's the sort of movie one might expect to be made by outsiders looking in on the subject matter, but seeing as we're a quarter of a century removed from the agreed-upon endpoint of the Troubles, time is gradually making everyone an outsider to the war.

This story, though, is set in the midst of it—in 1975, as those in favor of Northern Ireland's continued status as part of the United Kingdom and those in favor of a unified Ireland removed from the UK fight and die for their respective causes. Co-writers/co-directors, as well as brothers, Charles and Tom Guard assume the audience possesses a basic understanding of the factions and reasons behind the Troubles, and since only a basic comprehension of the fighting is necessary, some helpful opening text sets up some simple, foundational exposition for the conflict.

Mostly, though, it's a thorny, personal tale of revenge, under stakes so high that even the belief that vengeance might be sought against the other side is enough reason to retaliate. On one side of the focused conflict within the wider war is Michael O'Hara (Colin Morgan), an Irish nationalist with ties to the Irish Republican Army. He's about to give up the fight, not because he has stopped believing in independence from British rule, but on account of the fact that his wife (played by Máiréad Tyers) is about to give birth to the couple's first child.

Word of his retirement from the IRA, though, hasn't reached those opposed to that cause. In the opening sequence, Michael and his wife are racing from their lovely countryside cottage to the hospital, since the wife has gone into labor, and on the way, Michael notices a broken tree branch, suggesting the nearby presence of a large vehicle. Sure enough, an armored truck carrying British soldiers comes around the corner just after Michael flees upon his wife's insistence. He turns upon hearing a trio of shots, only to see that Tempest (Aml Ameen), one of the soldiers, has shot and killed his pregnant wife.

The rest of the narrative divides its time and, to the degree that the movie can, its sympathies about equally between the two men. Michael returns to the fold of the IRA, seeking the help of faction leader Keenan (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), a fairly ordinary and bland teacher in his other life, to hunt down Tempest. Our man on this side fakes his death, travels to London, and is forced into a group preparing to bomb a notable target in the city in exchange for Tempest's whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Tempest is enlisted into a secretive group of IRA-hunting agents by the equally enigmatic Holland (Mark Strong). This kind of work, Holland points out, demands people who are willing to take decisive and questionable action, as Tempest did when it came to Michael's wife. Despite being haunted by his killing of an unarmed pregnant woman, Tempest takes the job, in order to avoid inevitable prosecution for his actions, and, for some reason, seems naïvely ignorant about his role when he's sent to an IRA hideout in London.

There's a decided imbalance between these two characters that the Guards can't quite make equal. In spite of their best efforts to turn Tempest into a figure as wronged—in different ways—as his Irish counterpart, the character exists more to react to his own guilt, becoming an unwitting/unwilling pawn in this secret operation, and being the target of a man whose quest for justice is, on a primal and gut level, pretty justified. Tempest, the only Black man in his regiment and on the police force, faces injustice, too, but that systemic attack on him is more intellectually focused than tangibly so. In the same way, his romantic relationship with Ruth (Sophia Brown), who welcomes him home by welcoming him into her bed, comes across more as a concept of balancing the books of sympathy than an actual intimate bond.

Michael, on the other hand, is so clearly wronged, so understandable angry, and so relatively moral among his IRA peers that it's difficult not to see him as the sole hero of this tale. He's a man of principles beyond his political fight, scolding an IRA soldier for loading a bomb with hardware and insisting that the group gives the police enough time to clear people from their target before the bomb explodes. That's also the opinion of the team's local courier Catherine (Felicity Jones), who goes against her orders from and personal relationship with Keenan to prevent unnecessary injury and death.

All of these issues aside, the movie functions—and, at times, quite well—as a standard thriller, as the Guards harken back to genre exercises of the '70s with its gritty look, its attention to the process of various operations, and its electronic score. Given its tough and morally weighty subject matter, though, one can't help but wish the makers of Dead Shot made as much of an effort to address and confront those inherently deeper issues, too.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products