Black 47

An Irish film set dur­ing the pota­to famine has every right to be bleak. To air­brush over the pain inflict­ed upon com­mu­ni­ties under British rule in the 1800s would be to do a grave injus­tice to those who suf­fered through it. Lance Daly’s film makes a noble effort to tack­le such heavy sub­ject mat­ter, but Black 47 nev­er man­ages to thaw.

In a com­mu­ni­ty rav­aged by star­va­tion and crooked land­lords, James Frecheville plays Mar­tin Feeney, an Irish sol­dier who returns from serv­ing in the British army in Afghanistan, only to dis­cov­er his fam­i­ly have suf­fered great­ly in his absence. Hell-bent on revenge against those he holds account­able for their mis­ery, a clas­sic revenge sto­ry quick­ly unfolds a bit like John Wick, if John Wick was a sadist liv­ing in rur­al Ire­land in the 1800s.

2017 favourite Bar­ry Keoghan also pops up (giv­en less screen time than his top-billing indi­cates) as a naïve young sol­dier from New­cas­tle. Quite why they chose to cast an Irish actor in an Irish film as a Geordie is beyond under­stand­ing, but it’s per­haps just anoth­er car­riage in the train of thought that also sees Aus­tralian Hugo Weav­ing doing his best impres­sion of a gruff Eng­lish police inspec­tor. Frecheville gives a sur­pris­ing­ly one-note per­for­mance as Feeney, although his Irish accent is excel­lent, and it’s refresh­ing to watch a film which fea­tures Gael­ic dia­logue so heavily.

A revenge thriller set against such a bleak back­drop is an inter­est­ing idea, but there’s a sense that Black 47 only has ideas behind it, quick­ly falling into clichés as far reach­ing as the pre­dictable tra­di­tion­al score. Attempts to shock the audi­ence feel cheap and hack­neyed, and a lack of com­pelling back­sto­ry means there’s lit­tle sym­pa­thy afford­able to any of the char­ac­ters. A dark and dis­turb­ing film can be for­giv­en if it at least has some­thing inter­est­ing to say, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, Black 47 dwells too heav­i­ly on action, and not enough on consequence.