Fifty Dead Men Walking

Fifty Dead Men Walking, while a horribly titled movie, is a real life story involving the heroics of a man, undercover and infiltrating the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 80s and 90s as a spy, and saving the lives of other men.

How many men? Apparently over fifty. Didn’t want to leave the reasoning of the name hanging for you.

You’re welcome.

How does he get in that situation though?!

Marty McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is just a street hustler in his early 20s, and living in Ireland. Pretty simple. The IRA wants to recruit him, but he doesn’t want to join them. They are a pretty violent group and he doesn’t like violence!

Instead he gets recruited by the British and agrees to infiltrate the IRA ranks and give the British nice information. Hooray! Mostly because he hates the IRA, not the British. His handler Fergus (Ben Kingsley, who looks nothing like Ben Kingsley) is the only one to know about his double agent status, which works well for protecting his family and loved ones. Like his girlfriend, Lara (Natalie Press) who greatly dislikes his involvement in the IRA (once she “finds out”).

He has to work his way up through the ranks, getting into worse and worse aspects of the IRA, despite his moral objections to committing these acts himself. But Fergus convinces him to keep on going. But what happens when the IRA find out he is a spy? Well shit. Torture.

Against all odds he is able to escape, and he realizes he will never be safe again. The end of the movie notes that he is still on the run today, and the IRA still hates him. There was an attempted assassination attempt in 1999 where he got 6 bullets, and well, still survived. But you know, cant see his family ever again. Film also has Kevin Zegers and Rose McGowan, but Ben and Jim are the main two that matter.

Okay, he kind of looks like Ben Kingsley. But not by much.

Although I thought the acting from Jim was top notch in this movie, and found him able to carry the movie on his own, I still felt extremely uninterested in a lot of the movie.

Parts were cool I give you that, but other parts, well you know. I know shit is stupid in Northern Ireland, and that the IRA is mean, but I don’t know if that was enough to firmly entrench me in the story that this movie wanted to tell. It is also one of those movies where you know how it is going to end, so aren’t surprised as much at his escape or what happens to him. That is what sucks about real life stories.