Not in Derbyshire anymore

'71

Crit

As the annual green-themed Festival of Drunken White People* raged outside, I, English interloper, went to a green-vs.-orange-themed film, perhaps the most brutal Wizard of Oz movie I've ever seen.

Private Hook (Jack O'Connell), wet-behind-the-ears provincial Brit kid, is left behind by his unit when a Belfast patrol goes terribly wrong. Hook spends the rest of the film trying (1) to survive the night and (2) trying to get back to safety, a tall order given that, while a few people he encounters are sympathetic to his plight, the majority want him dead, including some who are ostensibly on the same side.

As a citizen who sews up his wound, and who has bitter recollections of his own time in the military tells him, the institution is "posh cunts telling thick cunts to kill poor cunts."

*Technically, the first adjective is imprecise, as many people of color participate nowadays; I stand by the second adjective, though, 100%.

Trailers

• The Gunman--Another old guy (Sean Penn) makes an action pic.
• An Honest Liar--Specifically, the Amazing Randi; having recently read a New Yorker story about the deceptions the great debunker suffered in his personal life, I am in.