Review – The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Someday someone will make a movie about Ireland that isn’t sad. Needless to say, however, anything set during the Irish Civil War probably isn’t gonna be it. And indeed, this production is full of the awful, self-destructive rage rampant at that time. But here we’re given at least some sense of understanding via dramatic re-creations of the crimes of the Black and Tans and the retributive violence they helped inspire. To be sure, Anglophiles will not enjoy this picture. But for anyone else willing to sit through some unpleasant stuff, this is a reasonably good job of storytelling. Mildly amusing