User reviews

OMAGH

Aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

Unlike its voracious American counterpart, British TV is generally reticent about dramatizing true-life crimes and atrocities, fearful of causing public offence and generating protest in self-righteous tabloid newspapers. Writer-director Paul Greengrass (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) has been negotiating this delicate minefield since 1994, producing some of the most compelling works in British TV history (including "Bloody Sunday" and THE MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE). And while he didn't direct OMAGH - an account of the search for justice following the Real IRA car bomb which exploded in the Irish market town of Omagh in August 1998 - his style is writ large over the entire production. Co-written by Greengrass and Guy Hibbert (SHOT THROUGH THE HEART), the film was directed by Pete Travis, a relative newcomer who distinguished himself in 2003 with his acclaimed TV drama HENRY VIII.

OMAGH focuses on Michael Gallagher (veteran actor Gerard McSorley), a quiet mechanic thrust into the media spotlight following his decision to pursue the shadowy figures who murdered his 21 year old son Aiden (along with so many others) on that dreadful afternoon. From the outset, the movie unspools with documentary precision, using hand-held cameras to enhance the sense of realism: The principal 'characters' are introduced in piecemeal fashion, via quick cuts from one scene to the next, but there's very little specific dialogue in the build-up to the explosion, in which 29 people died and hundreds were injured (primarily because the terrorist's vaguely worded tip-off led police to guide people directly into the bomb's immediate orbit), and the aftermath is reproduced in vivid detail. These difficult scenes are as sordid as they are necessary - the victims' relatives insisted on it - and the widespread grief which followed this appalling incident is depicted through the experiences of the remaining Gallagher family. McSorley's subsequent quest for justice leads him into contact with a wide variety of players, everyone from low-level police informants to some of Ireland's most prominent figures, only to find himself stonewalled by the politics of compromise. To date, no one has been tried for the Omagh bombing.

Respectful, honest and unemotional, this painful reminder of recent history simply records events as they occurred, without affectation or sensationalism. The acting is *peerless*, with McSorley a quiet tower of strength in the central role, matched every step of the way by Michèle Forbes as his distraught wife, and Brenda Fricker as police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan whose investigation into the Omagh inquiry uncovered a catalogue of errors and deceit. Campaigning television at its very best.

On August 15, 1998, a car bomb exploded in Omagh, Northern Ireland killing 29 people and injuring some 220 others. It was the single worst incident in Northern Ireland in over 30 years. In 2004 director Pete Travis filmed a movie about the atrocity and the subsequent investigation. It is a relentless, brutal film that never allows the viewer an emotional sigh of fresh air. What strikes me most about the film, now, is not the quality of the film, which is quite good actually, but that I had never before heard of this event.

Admittedly, I am not the most knowledgeable lad when it comes to current events. When I had a television I would catch one of the morning news shows, and maybe a few minutes of CNN or Fox News just before bed. While in the car I tune into NPR, I receive e-mails from the Washington Post and generally spend a few moments checking the various news websites. I'm not obsessive about the news, I try to stay mildly informed, but I certainly don't spend every waking moment turning my thoughts to the state of the world. Yet, here is huge terrorist attack, followed by a scandalous investigation with a potential cover up behind it, and I've never heard a word about it.

I am sure the news channels mentioned something about it shortly after the bombing. It was probably a short little blurb with a death count. It's got all the elements they love: terrorists, explosions, murder, and scandal. But, it didn't happen in America, and European drama doesn't have the ratings pull as say something stateside, say Michael Jackson's latest shenanigans. Especially when these events happened on some obscure country like Northern Ireland. Who knew the North of Ireland was a separate country anyway? In the US we have cable networks that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There is CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, not to mention specialty networks like CourtTV, and of course non news specific networks that still employ daily news shows. Yet with all of these outlets, American audiences are still inundated with the same stories over and over again. It is a big world, with a lot of important events happening, but instead of covering these events, they rehash the current scandal of the week, and trial of the century. How did Bill Clinton's hummer overshadow the murder of 29 people? How did Mark McGuire's record breaking home run sprint become more important than terrorist activity? Certainly the network news shows give us what we want. Had we received a 3 hour special report on the Omagh bombing I'm sure many of us would have clicked over to Seinfeld reruns. In the end, I'm not scholar enough, nor have the time, to lay out why virtually no one I know has heard of Omagh before. This is a movie review after all. Yet, as I think about the film I can't help but feel the sting of guilt. When I hear the chattering other others complaining that Americans are full of ego, and don't have the slightest idea about the world, I must hold my head low, and sigh.

The film itself is shot like a documentary, Dogme95 style. It uses hand held cameras, utilizes only natural lighting and there is nary a digital effect to be seen. For 106 minutes it never lets go of its punishing, merciless hold on your emotions. There is no comic relief, no juncture in which to catch your breath and get away from it all. The film brings you in close, lets you feel the tension, suffocate in the terror. It doesn't want you to enjoy what you see. This is not a film that allows the audience to distance themselves from the actions on the screen, nor their very lives. It is a film that cries out, carrying the voices of all humanity that suffers, that feel injustice.

Though it takes a few moments to adjust to its visual style, the hand held camera work becomes an effective means to bring the audience right into the emotional impact of the film. It looses a little steam in the second half when the main character, Michael Gallagher (Gerard McSorley), a father of one of the victims, begins to lose his way in bringing the terrorist to justice. However, though some headway is lost, the film continues to pack a hard emotional punch.

I am glad that films like Omagh are being made. Though it is a film that will never see a theatre screen in America, it may find its way onto a shelf in the local movie rental house. It is here, that countless Americans may go looking for something a little different, something that they haven't seen. And it is here that they might learn a little about the world around them.

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I do not believe I have ever seen a movie that more truthfully and compellingly captures tragedy than Pete Travis's Omagh.

Omagh tells the story of the 1998 Real IRA bombing that killed 29 people in the city of Omagh, Northern Ireland, and the aftermath that followed. Yet what endears me to this film is that this could have been any town, any family, any tragedy. The film is completely without frills. It is one of the few films I've seen that does not romanticize death and tragedy. It has no towering musical score telling your emotions where to go (there is no score at all, actually), no dramatic final words, no sanguine epitaphs. Instead, Travis shows us what the camera usually leaves out -- the dirty dishes after the funeral party has left your house, the ubiquitous reporters asking for pictures of the deceased, the kind but nuisance of a neighbor offering help when you just want to be left alone.

The technical aspects of the film were all very well done, as were the actors' performances. Everything about the film makes you feel as though you are looking through a window into what really happened at Omagh, rather than watching an screen adaptation of the events. Omagh is well worth a see.

A deeply moving account of the 1998 bombing of Omagh by the Real IRA and its aftermath. The film focuses on the struggle of the families of the victims to obtain justice in the face of puzzling official indifference.

Gerard McSorley's performance as Michael Gallagher, the chairman of the families group, is extraordinary. It is reminiscent in its intensity and emotional range of Jack Lemmon in Missing. McSorley deserves to win every award for which he is eligible and it is unlikely that a better performance will be seen on film this year.

When so much film making glorifies those who perpetrate slaughter across the world this film demonstrates the real heroism of victims of violence coming to terms with grief, rebuilding their lives and refusing to be ignored by the powerful.

Superb.

I am to young to remember the Omagh bombing but the film made you feel you were really their at the bombing and after.

The movie is based on a real event when 29 innocent people died by a car bomb planted by the real I.R.A (Irish Republican Army) The film focuses on Michael Gallagher and his family who lost there 19 year old son Aiden in the bombing. This results in the rest of the family trying to fit in without Aiden but fail. They then join a support group hoping to bring the I.R.A to justice.

Paul Greengrass(United 93,The Bourne Ultimatum) gives a fantastic script and Pete Travis does fantastic work in the direction and turns it into a movie that has you reaching for your handkerchiefs.

It is very rare to see a cheap film with a small and unknown cast and even an unknown director and turn it into a fascinating and wonderful drama that couldn't be topped no matter how much Hollywood stars or money would be put in it was a rare but special treat with almost no mistakes. Omagh will be very hard to find in a DVD shop but once you see it all that work will be worth it.

I never heard of Peter Travis prior to "Omagh" but the direction in this film deserves more than equal billing with Gerard McSorley, who stars the bereaved father who becomes chairman of the Omagh Support Group. The mounting tension at the start of the film as the bomb is positioned, the police are warned and the crowd on the High Street is herded to the spot where the explosion takes place is enough to take your breath away. It doesn't matter in the least that the accents are difficult for these American ears to understand at the film's beginning because you somehow know exactly what's happening at every moment. The frantic search for the missing son, the dawning realization that he has died, the intense grief, the formation of the Omagh Support Group with McSorley emerging as its leader, the effort to ensure that the investigation is pursued, the determination of the politicians that the incident not be allowed to derail "the peace process," the evasions and downright lies of the police, the mysterious emergence of the truth, the condemnation of police conduct by the police ombudswoman -- all are rendered with controlled intensity that never flags. One device that Travis and his cameraman use repeatedly to great effect is the extreme closeup in which a portion of the character's face is shown, framed usually at an artful angle that a skilled portrait photographer might adopt for a still picture. Those pictures capture the emotions of the characters with particular force. The tragedy of Omagh is brought alive to devastating effect. Don't let the fact that it was made for TV deter you from seeing this superb movie.

First I have never been a fan of the shaking camera effect. OK maybe it's useful for a few brief scenes to show chaos. Adding the documentary tone to this movie makes it come off as transparently contrived. It just gives the movie an unreal cheap low budget flavor.

I also did not know when I rented it that it was made for TV movie. The film is not horrible by any means. There are some very good segments in it dealing with grief. However considering the excellent subject matter I think a much better film could have been made. Of course it would have required a bigger budget.

It also could have explored the Northern Ireland conflict or at least shown what might have motivated the bombing. Rather than just use it as a tool to portray the subjects as apparently purely evil.

I imagine that for almost everyone in Northern Ireland, the title of this film acts as a plot summary as well because the bombing in 1998 of Northern Irish town Omagh is etched in the mind. The afternoon detonation in a bust market street claimed many, many civilian lives and left many more injured. This film covers the bombing and follows the aftermath through the experiences of Michael Gallagher, who lost his son and headed up the efforts of a civilian group looking for results and enquiries.

By the very nature of the story the film starts very strong. The scenes where the crowds are moved away from the wrong area, essentially into the blast area sickeningly tense because we know what is coming. Indeed the immediate aftermath and the hunt for news is almost very moving and it reminded me instantly of how I felt when I heard the news of the attack. With this peak so early, the film has to work to keep things from feeling like they dip. Sadly, it doesn't manage it and the rest of the film doesn't engage as it should, nor does it inform or move. It is a shame but it is a bit messy in the telling – reflecting the sort of ongoing, lack of resolution that many murders have down the decades in Northern Ireland. The conclusion rests heavily on the police enquiry and, as such, it makes the film feel like it is putting the majority of the blame on the police rather than the terrorists who planted the bomb. This is not the case, but it is easy to see it that way with the second half of the film and the way it chooses to conclude as a story. This hurts it – not in terms of balance (although that is an issue) but just because it is part of the film not really having a handle on what it is doing once the aftermath moves from the immediate to the longer term.

The cast are hard to fault though and certainly McSorley does great work in the lead. He captures the unassuming Ulsterman character well – someone recognisable as being one of the sort of people we have in this country (we have countless others but his character reminded me of several relatives). He emotes really well and it is just a shame the film did not use his character better than it did. The rest of the cast are secondary to him but mostly are solid and convincing. The direction is good but it is the writing where it falls down to the point where it can't recover. It doesn't really flow and the structure is part of the problem.

Overall this is a film with an impacting opening 40 minutes, that easily moves and angers in the way the events themselves did. However as a film it doesn't seem to have a tight focus on where to go from there and as a result the story is messy and unclear, leaving the viewer with a memory of emotion amid the collection of scenes that follow. Can't fault the intent but the delivery is lacking.

First there was "Bloody Sunday" and then there was "Omagh" - in between, there was thirty years of bloodletting that left thousands dead and many thousands more scarred physically and mentally. This is (or was?) "The Troubles".

This is a quiet movie - of quiet desperation. The people of Omagh had survived and were going about their lives. The killers came and tore them apart - literally. The ones left behind looked for help - none was to be found. Their loved ones had been taken and they wanted closure. Their guardians failed them.

The movie recounts the worst of the atrocities to have occurred in Northern Ireland over the years when a group of self-righteous hoodlums detonate a bomb in the center of a busy market town - Omagh. Most of the movie recounts the efforts of the families of the dead and injured to seek justice for the slain. They are still looking!

In 1998 the so-called Real IRA (a split from the original IRA that didn't agree with the peace process in Northern Ireland) exploded a 200 kg bomb in one of the most crowded streets of the city of Omagh. More than 30 dead, hundreds of wounded people... No one were judged for those crimes. The politicians were afraid that the peace process might end and just "let it be".

"Omagh" approaches to those facts from the point of view of the victims. The initial shock, the confusion, the anxiety... The first half hour of the movie is just hair-raising, and if you're a very sensitive person you should't see it. For the rest of you: the film is just superb, and it isn't gruesome at all. Pete Travis shows the facts as they were, but so carefully and with a style that makes the movie look like a documentary.

The work of the actors is outstanding, for it's so hard to play that kind of characters (they're so emotional).

*My rate: 8/10

What a moving experience watching this movie. You get a great idea of the troubles Northern Ireland went through, and how it affected England itself and Northern Ireland as well.

You also get a glimpse of how it affected families of the dead and what they had to go through just to get recognition for these bombings.

Gerard McSorley was superb in this film. It was almost surreal how good this man was in this film.

Overall, this had to be the greatest film I have ever seen. And I was only 14 when I saw this film (15 at this moment) and I'm still touched by this movie.

I recommend this movie to everyone not only interested in Northern Ireland and the troubles, but for someone who wants to see a moving, touching, and amazing movie.

Fortunately I had the opportunity to see this film in Mexico. Its powerful recreation of an actual event was underscored by its sympathetic portrayal of everyday life in Northern Ireland. I was impressed that the violence on screen was limited to the explosion. The sequencing of the movie was outstanding, beginning with the assassins driving through the hills to Omagh, shifting to a father and son working together in the town, and then into the center of the town itself. Although the locale was one small town, of course its theme applies to all too many parts of the world these days. One interesting detail is that the faces looked familiar but that isn't surprising because many Americans are descended from the Scotch-Irish who settled in Northern Ireland.

Another one of these "Those IRA people were such heartless bastards!" movies the Irish like to make every couple years or so just to annoy people, Omagh explores one father's quest to Bring The IRA To Justice when his son, along with scores of other people, are blown up in Omagh's city square. He rather reluctantly chooses to be the leader of a group of people looking for justice, then becomes quite obsessed by it. And before you can answer the bonus question boys and girls, YES! His home life does suffer from it! So as you can see, this is highly formulatic and easily predictable stuff here, made to get people's rabbles roused. Not half as good as the amazing Bloody Sunday movie that was made a few years back, Omagh hardly veers beyond Irish TV Movie Of The Week.

The most salient fact about this TV movie is that its two hours' running time includes 65 speaking parts. Torn between focusing on one or two human stories behind Northern Ireland's worst terrorist outrage and giving a panorama of the politics that led to it, the production settles for wheeling on almost every Ulster character actor you ever saw and others besides. Even an Oscar winner, Brenda Fricker, is in there somewhere, so she is: blink and you'll miss her.

This jittery kaleidoscope creates confusion and dissipates sympathy; as soon as we begin to dig into one victim's backstory, we're off at another tangent. Neither good art nor good commerce, such worthy exercises in the reconstruction of recent events fall between the stools of documentary and drama.

Like many, "Omagh" is shot in "swivelvision" in the common but quite mistaken belief that this makes it look more "real"-- as though documentarists had never learned to use Steadicam. It tiptoes delicately through the minefield of libel that bedevils moveimakers trying to portray unresolved situations: a title at the end tells us that the suspected bombers all deny involvement, so there is no catharsis to be obtained by showing them going to jail. Making us feel sorry for the bereaved is easy meat; but like many an American "issue" movie, all this one will generate in viewers outside Northern Ireland is smug relief at being hors de combat.

This movie caught me up from the first few minutes til the last. I completely agree with the reviewers who praise its understated and authentic feel and don't agree at all with the person(s) who thought it was "jerky" and "obvious." It was extremely well done, humane and engaging. And to the reviewer who said we, in the United States, don't get to see such important fare b/c our news media keeps recycling the same story ad nauseum, AMEN. But it is not only our news media, but the fact that hardly any movie audience in America could or would sit through such an un-Hollywood like movie, without any soundtrack, FOR GAWD's SAKE, that also keeps us stupid and uninformed. Luckily, I can afford to have Dish Network and was able to see this unexpected gem on the Sundance channel. To all others, please see it some way or other.

But not excellent. Shot in the fashion of "Bloody Sunday," but the jittery hand-held cameras and "natural lighting" come off as contrived here and do not enhance the unfolding of the horror story that was Omagh on August 15th, 1998. I was in Ireland then, but in the South, when we heard the dreadful news.

This film helps to fill in some of the background and make it all very real. Gerard McSorley plays the reluctant hero, Michael Gallagher, a shy mechanic, who is thrust into the spotlight by the other victims' families and heads up the Support Group that hounds the government and police forces for answers and accountability.

Sadly, to this day, there has been no one charged for the atrocity and it appears that the police on both sides of the border, at the urging of politicians, were complicit in not pursuing a thorough investigation. The story carries one along, both in sympathy and a slowly dawning disgust at the way these unfortunate families are treated.

Many small bit parts - Brenda Fricker plays the ombudsman who brings truth to the group. Good television fare but hardly worth the high end rental for the above noted irritants. 8 out of 10.

Having just seen this film, I believe that some superlatives are warranted! The performances in this film are hauntingly powerful, most notably Gerald Mcsorley, whose immense portrayal adds credibility and resonance to the tragic story. The direction is magnificent...mostly shot in the style of a documentary, while refraining from actually being a mockumentary. This also adds weight. The fact that this creative, interesting and powerful film only finds a home on TV, rather than at the cinemas...while films like Sex lives and the Potato Men gets a general release, says a lot about the British Film industry!

Director Pete Travis (Vantage Point) got a well-deserved BAFTA in this gut wrenching film written by Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum) and Guy Hibbert.

The story of a 1998 bombing that claimed 29 lives and injured over 200 shows the struggle against political stonewalling and cover-up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and government authorities.

Imagine a father's surprise when he finds out that the authorities knew about the blast beforehand and did nothing. You can imagine the families of the victims of the September 11th bombings in this country and the suspicion of a cover-up. There was a real cover-up here.

Gerard McSorley (Veronica Guerin, The Constant Gardener) led a stellar cast that included Michele Forbes as his wife.

NOTE: Justice was not served with criminal prosecutions, but there was a successful civil suit after the OJ Simpson civil suit.