| OMAGH |
 2004 – Ireland / UK Director: Pete Travis
- Reviewed by Linda
On August 15, 1998, a car bomb exploded at lunchtime in a pedestrian shopping area in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Twenty-nine people were killed and over 220 injured, in the single worst incident of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland in 30 years. No one was arrested and justice never prevailed. The film Omagh is based on the events of one Michael Gallagher (Gerard McSorley) a quiet and strong man whose life was torn apart when he lost his son, a young man, in the tragedy. The film is shot with news-footage immediately, as we are given the first-person perspective of the Gallagher family. It is a beautiful morning, as Michael and his son Aiden pack up and go to work at the family's auto shop. Everything is too perfect, the family is simply too nice, and gets along too well. It doesn't help that the scenes are spliced with images of men taking a car from a barn in the countryside, filling the trunk with a fertilizer bomb, and driving toward the city. They park it at the end of the pedestrian shopping boulevard, and simply leave it, with the timer on the bomb ticking away. Aiden decides to go shopping for jeans with a friend during lunch. This first part of Omagh is the best part of the film. A bomb threat comes in, saying the courthouse is the target. The police shoo people to the end of the boulevard for their safety... right towards where the car with the bomb is parked. The tension of watching this unfold is almost unbearable. The bomb goes off. Omagh follows Michael Gallagher, as well as other families and friends of the victims of the Omagh bombing, try to get a sense of justice, and a sense of closure from the tragedy. We see the townspeople dealing with the confusing hospital triage area, hoping to hear news of loved ones. We see them watch news reports, hoping to hear of arrests. We seem them finally gather, in rage and grief, to discuss action... some kind of action... to have their voices (and the victims' voices) be heard. Though the film is extremely well-acted, especially by McSorley as Gallagher, Omagh suffers a bit with the excitement happening in the first third or so of the movie. Watching the families as they watch and wait, is unfortunately not the most gripping drama. But to know that it is a true story (and a recent one, that I was sad to admit I had never heard about), makes Omagh an important story to watch. The film itself serves as a voice for the victims. The fact that it doesn't really have a resolution, except the obvious revelation that many things slipped through the cracks before, during, and after the tragedy, makes it all the more enraging. |
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