Jim Sturgess

In Belfast slang, a "tout" is an informant, and "Fifty Dead Men Walking" tells a dramatically compressed, highly charged version of one tout's life story, which is also the story of multiple near-deaths.

Canadian writer-director Kari Skogland's sharp, well-acted film is based on the autobiography of Martin McGartland, a West Belfast Catholic who in the late 1980s insinuated himself into the good graces of the Irish Republican Army in order to funnel intelligence to the occupying British forces. The movie works better than its reputation coming out of last year's Toronto International Film Festival would suggest. Skogland is a crisp and efficient storyteller. She keeps the players vivid and relatively honest, and never shies away from the brutalities.

Jim Sturgess is excellent as McGartland, a hustler (we first meet him when he's selling stolen undergarments door to door) whose double life threatens to split him in two. This young actor, who starred in the card-sharp schlocker "21" and "Across the Universe," is the Meryl Streep of England -- in terms of his skill with dialects, that is. The performance doesn't settle for showboating, though: In his interactions with his British security op (Ben Kingsley), or with his lover (Natalie Press, eloquent in her depiction of a woman living with a shadow of a man), Sturgess lets us see the thrill of deceit as well as the panic induced by all the bloodletting in the ongoing Irish war.

The title refers to the lives McGartland saved, though one could argue that the truer figure is lower, depending on his actual IRA activities. Occasionally Skoglund indulges in the wrong sort of movie pulp, notably in a couple of montage sequences. In its later scenes, as the noose tightens around McGartland (who lives in an undisclosed location today, separated from his family), "Fifty Dead Men Walking" piles on the dread in dubious ways.

McGartland in fact has disowned the movie, claiming in interviews that it "misrepresents" his life and work. "Why did the filmmakers feel it necessary to turn my story on its head?" he asked a one London newspaper writer.

The question has been asked by many a biographical screen subject. Yet Sturgess and company make a fervent case for this film's version of events.

 

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Fifty Dead Men Walking MPAA rating: R (for strong brutal violence and torture, language and some sexuality).

Running time: 1:57.

Starring: Jim Sturgess (Martin McGartland); Ben Kingsley (Fergus); Kevin Zegers (Sean); Natalie Press (Lara); Rose McGowan (Grace).

Written and directed by Kari Skogland; based on the book by Martin McGartland and Nicholas Davies; produced by Skogland, Stephen Hegyes, Peter La Terriere and Shawn Williamson. A Phase 4 Films release.

 

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