This has a lot to live up to . . The copy I saw came complete with the blurb of " The War of Children is an uncomfortably realistic TV drama of the latter-day "troubles" in Ireland. The tension is magnified by the decision to film many of the key scenes in battle-scarred Belfast, with the crew dodging bullets all down the line. These sequences were seamlessly blended with newsreel footage and with pickup shots filmed in the safer confines of Dublin. Actual Belfasters were used as extras, which explains why their reactions of horror and hatred are so grimly convincing " which contradicts a couple of the comments on this page .
As soon as it started I noticed something was wrong . The soldiers had a strange type of Disrupted Patern Material( DPM ) uniform . It's certainly not British DPM and I'd hazard a guess it's actually Italian army uniform . As the plot progresses you realise you don't have to be The Duke Of Wellington to notice the lack to military logic in the story . Anthony Andrews cheeky cockney soldier Reg Hogg freely wanders around Belfast unarmed and in uniform never fearing for his life despite the IRA engaging in frequent gun battles and bombings against the Brits . . If there's any Americans reading this try and imagine a story set in Iraq in 2005 and an American soldier taking an Arab girl out on a date to downtown Bahgdad and you'll understand the unlikeliness of this
The story proper revolves around the catholic Tomelty family who are friends with the protestant McCullum family but as the troubles explode over Northern Ireland their friendship turns to hostility . It's somewhat difficult to believe in the Tomelty's as real people since they're literary devices used to show how tribalistic conflicts divides individuals . The lack of conviction isn't helped either by Mr Tomelty coming across as an advert for Irish hospitality . One day he invites Brit Reg Hogg over to dinner and the next day he invites IRA gunman Seamus Lynch to the family table . . You really do worry that after he's interned by the British Ireland might be beset by another famine such is his hospitality
The story culminates in a mob of nationalist women trying to spring their husbands from a military convoy that ends in tragedy and as Jenny Aguter's character wails " Get me out of here " you feel she's saying this to her agent rather than Reg . A WAR OF CHILDREN is a very naive film full of unlikely situations and risible dialogue such as ten year old children saying " A moment of yer time if you're not too busy " but despite these criticisms it's nowhere as offensive as say THE DEVIL'S OWN . The film's heart is in the right place even though its brain never is
As soon as it started I noticed something was wrong . The soldiers had a strange type of Disrupted Patern Material( DPM ) uniform . It's certainly not British DPM and I'd hazard a guess it's actually Italian army uniform . As the plot progresses you realise you don't have to be The Duke Of Wellington to notice the lack to military logic in the story . Anthony Andrews cheeky cockney soldier Reg Hogg freely wanders around Belfast unarmed and in uniform never fearing for his life despite the IRA engaging in frequent gun battles and bombings against the Brits . . If there's any Americans reading this try and imagine a story set in Iraq in 2005 and an American soldier taking an Arab girl out on a date to downtown Bahgdad and you'll understand the unlikeliness of this
The story proper revolves around the catholic Tomelty family who are friends with the protestant McCullum family but as the troubles explode over Northern Ireland their friendship turns to hostility . It's somewhat difficult to believe in the Tomelty's as real people since they're literary devices used to show how tribalistic conflicts divides individuals . The lack of conviction isn't helped either by Mr Tomelty coming across as an advert for Irish hospitality . One day he invites Brit Reg Hogg over to dinner and the next day he invites IRA gunman Seamus Lynch to the family table . . You really do worry that after he's interned by the British Ireland might be beset by another famine such is his hospitality
The story culminates in a mob of nationalist women trying to spring their husbands from a military convoy that ends in tragedy and as Jenny Aguter's character wails " Get me out of here " you feel she's saying this to her agent rather than Reg . A WAR OF CHILDREN is a very naive film full of unlikely situations and risible dialogue such as ten year old children saying " A moment of yer time if you're not too busy " but despite these criticisms it's nowhere as offensive as say THE DEVIL'S OWN . The film's heart is in the right place even though its brain never is