How sad is this?

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERSAn excellent piece of film making which shows the oppression the Irish people have endured under British rule and the lengths the hunger strikers had to go to get POW status and to show the world how the Irish people where being treated by the Thatcher government. thought Helen Mirren was excellent in this film as was Fionnula Flanagan and Aidan Gillen. However I didn't think John Lynch was very convincing as Bobby Sands. WARNING SPOILERS: Only thing found a bit unrealistic about this film was at the funeral scene the IRA had AK-47 riles in reality they didn't get them until around 1986 (the film is based in 1981) when the Gaddafi shipments came through. Plus in the court scene the lawyers are all English in reality they where mostly Irish.

There are some excellent, nuanced performances in this movie, particularly from the two leads, Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan (an underrated character actress best known for her work in "The Others"). But by no means is this easy to watch - and it's best appreciated, whatever your view on the long-standing conflict, if you have some idea of the history first, and the passion that still surrounds Bobby Sands. Tim Pat Coogan's "The Troubles," while a mammoth volume, summarizes the death and destruction that have been visited on all three of the major players - British, Catholic, Protestant.Interestingly, Helen Mirren also starred in "Cal", another movie about the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland, playing a Protestant widow who falls in love with a Catholic man. In both movies, Mirren's character endures the unthinkable - watching the people she loves best being torn by sectarian violence. Yet in "Cal," Mirren's character is more passive, having things "happen" to her. In "Some Mother's Son", Mirren and Flanagan take action, their passion for their children stirring them to activism, right or wrong.

With an excellent cast, soundtrack and photography this film's one flaw is that it must over-simplify a complex and pivotal episode in Irish history. Despite that it does a fairly good job of capturing the essence of what happened, smartly exposing the viewer to this rarely seen world through the eyes of a middle-class mother whose son, unknown to her, is caught up in the incendiary world of 'the Troubles' of Northern Ireland.Convicted of taking part in an attack on British forces as part of an IRA Active Service Unit, her son quickly finds himself the cell-mate of soon-to-be-IRA-icon/martyr, Bobby Sands. Although the film does not really explore the personality of this seminal figure (for ex: that he was a poet), it does convey the gravity of the situation he was thrust in as well as the huge impact the hunger strike had on the Northern Irish, indeed people around the world.But more so, this film is about the suffering that the women in these situations, particularly the mothers (hence the title) must endure. They have no choice in the tragedy that forces itself on their lives, yet they must find ways to overcome and affect what positive change they can.Some say there is not enough "action" in the film. It is not an "action" movie. There are plenty of Dolph Lundgren vehicles out there if that is all you want. This film is about how episodes of moving history effects everyday people's lives.

SOME MOTHER`S SON starts with some archive video of Magaret Thatcher making a speech after winning the 1979 British general election followed by a sequence of British government officials getting together with one of them saying " The rules < On Northern Ireland and terrorism have changed > have changed , the policy is now isolation , criminalization and demoralization " . This is a very strange thing to say about the situation in Northern Ireland in 1979 since despite the change in government there was no change in policy . The IRA were making a grand job isolating themselves from the mainstream nationalist community throughout the 1970s with incidents like " Bloody Friday " which were killing and maiming as many catholics as protestants . Criminalization ? Well the IRA have always been outlawed on both sides of the border since partition in 1922 , oh and convicted terrorists , loyalisist or republican , lost all political status in 1976 . Anyone found convicted of terrorist convictions after March 1976 was no longer eligible for political status within the Northern Ireland prison system . This was introduced by the Labour government`s Northern Ireland secetary Merlyn Rees not as insinuated here Thatcher`s Conservative government . As for demoralization the Provisional IRA were very much demoralized before Thatcher came into government . By 1975 they realised unification with the South wasn`t going to happen , had become embroiled in fueds with the Official IRA and loyalist terror groups while most of their members had been killed or imprisoned , not imprisoned in Long Kesh as in the early 1970s but in the new purpose built Maze with its strict regime ( Criminalization is a demoralizing thing ) while recruitment into the ranks was drying up ( If you go around blowing up innocent civilians you can expect this to happen ) , as I said Isolation , criminalization and demoralization weren`t the invention of ThatcherAnother serious factual error that leapt out at me was the court room scene. In a Northern Ireland " Diplock " court used to try people up for terrorist offences ( Remember both loyalist and republican defendants were tried this way )there`s three judges used but here we see only one who is a toffee nosed Englishman as are the defence barristers . In most cases Diplock judges were Irish , as are defence and prosecuting attorneys , but not only are most defence lawyers Irish they`re nearly all Irish catholics ! The most notorious loyalist murder gang " The Shankhill butchers " - whose idea of a good night out was to kidnap the nearest suspected catholic passerby and slowly skin him alive - where defended by a catholic lawyer , so how on earth a film that struts its credentials as being " Based on factual events " can get away with this misrepresentation of a Northern Ireland court is beyond me . There are also several iinaccurate details in geography and anachronisms like the Brits uniforms ( The polycarbide helmets they wear weren`t introduced untill 1986 ) which I couldn`t help but notice These above comments are facts which can`t be disputed . They can`t be disputed because they are facts , so I won`t put too much opinion on SOME MOTHER`S SON . It is very well acted and it was very good to see that for a brief moment Helen Mirren`s character Kathleen Quigley comes to the realisation that she`s being manipulated by the IRA / Sinn Fein but this is a brief moment in a film that`s preceeded by polemical opinion which screams " Britain is entirely responsible for the troubles " and finishes with a caption giving the names of the ten IRA/INLA hunger strikers . I guess it would have been too much to print the names of those murdered by these particular hunger strikers ?