Route Irish
2010
**½
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Mark Womack, Andrea Lowe, John Bishop, Geoff Bell, Jack Fortune, Talib Rasool, Craig Lundberg, Trevor Williams, Russel Anderson, Jamie Michie
Fergus is a former SAS soldier who works as a security contractor in Iraq. When his best mate Frankie is killed on Route Irish, the road from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone, Fergus refuses to believe the official truth and begins his own investigation. The left-wing director Ken Loach and his screenwriting partner Paul Laverty are known for their provocative oeuvre which repeatedly tackles social injustice. Their latest work is set in a black and white world where the good guys are angry working class men who shout expletives in a thick Liverpudlian accent and the bad guys speak calmly with an uppity accent and play golf. In fairness, this film begins as a gritty conspiracy thriller which takes a scathing look at the commercialisation of war. Towards the end, however, it turns into a flat story about personal retribution and redemption which is not far from the usual Hollywood dross.
