I enjoyed the movie but I'm now curious where it differed from history. The trivia mentioned that father and son were not in the same cell, and I've seen other posts implying the guard burning did not occur as shown. Anyone have a quick list of obvious or key differences? Preferably someone not as insane, trollish and rigidly ideological as rice-1. Thanks!
shareI don't remember all of them, but here are the ones I remember:
* Gerry and Giuseppe were not in the same cell
* the man admitting to bombing the bar was never held in the same prison as Conlon
Those are the big ones. Sorry that I cannot recall any others.
Gerry and Paul didn't meet in the Ferry. They met when Gerry was already living in London with his then-girlfriend.
shareTo name just a few more:-
The entire closing courtroom scene is not only complete nonsense but makes a total mockery of legal procedure - the real Gareth Peirce and solicitor Alastair Logan (who doesn't even get a mention in the film, despite having devoted two decades of his life fighting to free the Four) were both horrified by the fiction the film paints.
No evidence was supressed or hidden, the defence had access to all of the information at the appeal (willingly provided by the prosecution), the bits that were later central to the convictions being overturned just weren't deemed relevant originally.
The 'evil' cops are completely fictionalised characters.
Conlon's alibi is also massively conflated/made up - the park bench witness was actually a young man in a hostel and the robbery of the prostitute wasn't until ten days later and so had no bearing on the bombing.
It's also worth noting that many scholars and experts sympathetic to the Republican movement were heavily critical of the film - it's not just a case of the right-wing British press having an anti-Irish bias.
One wonders how all the Irish Americans who made this travesty such a success would feel if a British film painted Mohamed Atta as in innocent bystander who just happened to get caught up in the World Trade Centre attacks?
This 1994 review by Richard Grenier pretty much shreds this film to pieces, historically: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/in-the-name-of-the-ira/. I recommend reading the whole thing, if you can spare five minutes.
While this is a good fiction story (8/10), it certainly is not based on a true story any more than any parody is based on the original work, and does not belong in the top 250. I don't like it when filmmakers piss on me and tell me it's raining, particularly when it's a film ABOUT pissing on people and telling them it's raining.
Another bad "re-write" in the film that didn't happen was that Gareth Pierce never even met Guissepe Conlon.Guiseppe had sadly already died when Ms Pierce came onto the case and met Gerry in prison.
I'd read Gerry's book in the 90's after seeing ITNOTF, and as much as I loved the film - for it's power, it's cinematic power and it's linear storytelling, I WAS disappointed that Jim Sheridan and co would make up stuff in the film when it was supposed to be a TRUE retelling of a piece of real life history.
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"No evidence was supressed or hidden, the defence had access to all of the information at the appeal "
The "Interim Report on the Maguire Case" says otherwise. See section 12 of that report.
"One wonders how all the Irish Americans who made this travesty such a success would feel if a British film painted Mohamed Atta as in innocent bystander who just happened to get caught up in the World Trade Center attacks?"
What a ridiculous comparison. Whatever dramatic license was taken by the filmmakers, the fact remains that Gerry Conlin and the rest of the Guildford 4 and the Maguire 7 had nothing whatsoever to do with the bombings and were falsely convicted of the crimes.
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