Route Irish: A right on thriller that’s taken the wrong route

By
Chris Tookey
Last updated at 8:33 AM on 18th March 2011

Verdict: Ken Loach at his worst

Rating:

Route
Irish is a didactic thriller about the Iraq war, with wearisomely
predictable villains and a profoundly unsympathetic hero.

Mark
Womack, playing an aggressive, foul-mouthed former SAS man, undertakes a
thoroughly unbelievable investigation into a fictitious war crime,
torturing and murdering as he goes, while conducting an absurd,
sado-masochistic romance with his best friend’s widow (Andrea Lowe).

On the wrong track: Route Irish is a didactic thriller with predictable villains and an unsympathetic hero

Loach
and his screenwriter Paul Laverty clearly believe the War On Terror is
just another excuse for capitalists to exploit the proletariat, and
wicked white imperialists to oppress innocent Arabs.

To persuade anyone apart from themselves, however, they’re going to have to do better than this.

I’m
a fan of Loach’s finest achievements, such as Kes (1969), Raining
Stones (1993) and My Name Is Joe (1998), but this unwelcome return to
heavy-handed agit-prop strays perilously close to self-parody.