THE DEVIL'S OWN (46)

Directed by: Alan J. Pakula

Starring: Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Treat Williams

The Pitch: An IRA terrorist, in New York to purchase arms for the Cause, stays at the home of an unsuspecting Irish-American cop.

Theo Sez: A film both unexpectedly thoughtful and incredibly irresponsible. It's low-key character drama with only occasional action and some surprisingly believable ordinary-family moments, but it could also be campaign literature for the Irish-American lobby, glamorising the IRA more than any film since ODD MAN OUT (not that it's otherwise to be spoken of in the same breath as that masterpiece). As the undercover terrorist, Pitt uses all his (considerable) charisma and very little of his TWELVE MONKEYS edge, his character more likely to be playing football in the street and horsing around with his comrades than actually fighting the British : even his victims are exclusively cops and soldiers ("no real people," as Mr. Pink might say) - which, as everyone on this side of the Atlantic knows, is a long way from IRA reality. In portraying that organisation as a boisterous bunch of enthusiastic amateurs - their plan to cross the Atlantic in a leaky boat with a cargo of (neatly-labelled) ground-to-air missiles especially ludicrous - it both falls prey to the worst kind of Oirish stereotypes and fritters away almost all the credibility built up by its finely-crafted exposition (and by the strange kind of muted light in Gordon Willis's sombre photography). Despite or because of a certain predictability - you pretty much know Ford's sidekick is doomed once he starts talking about retiring and raising pot-bellied pigs - it seems a solid movie : it's a surprise when it collapses into unmotivated silliness in its final stages.