Fifty Dead Men Walking

Saturday 11th April 2009, 8:50AM BST.

Kari Skogland writes and directs this gritty portrait of life in late ’80s and early ’90s Belfast, inspired by the book by real-life informer Martin McGartland.

Fifty Dead Men Walking is an incredible story of bravery and self-sacrifice, about one young man who risked his life to do what he thought was right, during the height of the conflict.

‘The price of conscience is death,’ one character warns McGartland in the film and he certainly pays a hefty price for his courage and daring: separation from his beloved wife and two children and an uncertain future, permanently on the run from the countrymen he dared to betray.

Unfolding in flashback, the film steps back in time to 1988 Northern Ireland, where chancer best friends Martin (Jim Sturgess) and Sean (Kevin Zegers) hawk products door to door for cash in the hand, gleefully ignoring the visible signs of conflict between British forces and the IRA.

All Martin cares about is earning money – by any and every means possible, regardless of the legality – to keep a roof above the head of his pregnant girlfriend Lara (Natalie Press).

When the police catch up with him, Martin refuses to grass on members of his community and is eventually released, reuniting with Sean who introduces him to a grateful IRA operative called Ray (William Houston).

In turn, he lands a job for Ray’s superior Micky Adams (Tom Collins) and Martin finds himself gravitating towards the organisation’s upper echelons of power.

Once again, a British Special Branch handler called Fergus (Kingsley) approaches Martin and offers him a significant amount of money to inform against the IRA.

This time the father-to-be reluctantly accepts, believing his identity as a mole will never be exposed.

A mission to Scotland with seductive Grace Sterrin (Rose McGowan) – ‘She uses her body with deadly force. She’s like Mata Hari’ – almost ends in disaster.

As the pressure on Martin intensifies and it becomes increasingly difficult to tip off Fergus to IRA operations before they take place, the organisation’s die-hard supporters initiate a search for the traitor in their midst with the finger of suspicion eventually pointing at the driver: ‘It seems whenever you’re around, nothing blows up.’

Having dragged Martin into the middle of a war, can Fergus save him?

Fifty Dead Men Walking confidently evokes an era of bloodshed and retaliation, eliciting strong performances from Sturgess (sporting a credible accent) and Kingsley, the latter acting as narrator.

‘We uphold the law and break the law in the name of the law,’ laments Fergus as his secret operation falls apart at the seams, the tension escalating by the minute as it seems Martin will be slain for his duplicitous actions.

Press’s spouse remains too much on the periphery, failing to provide an emotional anchor that would make Martin’s ultimate fate all the more heartbreaking.