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100Jim Sheridan skillfully interweaves a myriad of subplots and themes into a fast-paced, cohesive whole.
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100For in relating the true story of Conlon's wrongful conviction and 15-year imprisonment, Sheridan has used the tools of the filmmaker to evoke a visceral echo of Conlon's waking nightmare.
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100But the filmmakers have invigorated and enriched the story through the use of a thousand details, a strong sense of time and place, outstanding characterizations and a display of energy and cinematic flair that marks an advance on "My Left Foot."
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91Sheridan, however, works with such piercing fervor and intelligence that In the Name of the Father just about transcends its tidy moral design.
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And, riskiest of all, the film makers eschewed another grainy documentary go at the subject in favor of a movie drama of one of the most compelling true stories of the modern troubles.
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90In the Name of the Father is as good a compromise of fact and fiction as you could hope for -- and still call it a movie.
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The picture turns into a kind of stylized morality play about the right and the wrong ways for Irishmen to respond to distorted portraits of their character, and it's terrifically effective.
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90Sheridan and colleagues understood their chief problem: how to sustain interest in a story that was well-known in advance, not a large historical subject with its own prestige but a news story now dated. So they concentrated on character and on acid irony. [03 Jan 1994 Pg. 28]
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88Though the facts have been manipulated in the interests of drama--Gerry and Giuseppe were never imprisoned together, etc.--this has been done in a brave and responsible way, shedding light on an important episode in recent history.
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80Strongly tied to a powerful underlying reality (though it inevitably tends to simplify), this film has the additional advantage of being concerned with the emotional truth of its key relationships, adding an unusual father and son story to its incendiary mix. [29 Dec 1993 Pg. F1]
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80By the end of the movie, whether or not you're a member of Sinn Fein, the Brits' brutality toward the Conlons will get your Irish up.
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80But the acting's so good it frequently transcends the simplicities of the script, and whenever Day-Lewis or Postlethwaite is on-screen the movie crackles.
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75The movie does a harrowing job of showing how, and why, a man might be made to confess to a bombing he didn't commit.
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63He gets much of what he wants, but not all of it, and not all of the time - the film is just too eclectic on occasion, a bit jumpy in its tone and its pacing.
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50But the film's emotional core is father-son reconciliation, and Pete Postlethwaite is very sympathetic as Dad. [29 Dec 1993 Pg. 01.D]
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50Based on Gerry Conlon's own account of his arrest and subsequent incarceration, the film takes forever to do what "60 Minutes" does with the same meat in a single segment.