Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins is a forceful historical thriller with a troublesome fondness for its subject. Liam Neeson supplies the conviction, though Jordan leaves too little room for us to question the man he admires.
Neil Jordan approaches Michael Collins with the urgency of a thriller and the affection of an admirer. The result is an involving historical drama, with a substantial reservation about how readily it asks us to approve of its subject. Jordan, who writes as well as directs, makes political struggle feel immediate because decisions have to become actions, often violent ones. It is good, forceful filmmaking, and we recommend it without accepting all of its judgements.
Liam Neeson’s Collins is the reason this approach gets as far as it does. Neeson gives him a confidence that seems useful to other people, the sort that could get them to act before they have settled their doubts. We were stirred by his bluster: Neeson’s delivery makes certainty sound reassuring even when the prospect of violence ought to make it frightening. That is a convincing way to play a leader, and Jordan gives him room to work.
The editing by J. Patrick Duffner and Tony Lawson is crucial to the thriller’s momentum. Jordan’s cross-cutting lets separate pieces of action press against one another, building apprehension without making the movement difficult to follow. There is something disturbing about the efficiency with which political purpose becomes violence. The filmmaking gives that process enough urgency to hold our attention without requiring a speech at every stage. These are the stretches in which Jordan seems most confident about what the pictures can tell us.
Chris Menges’s cinematography helps the danger feel close, even when the film works on a large scale. Anthony Pratt’s production design gives the period setting a solidity that matters when violence threatens it; the surroundings never seem to exist merely for inspection. Elliot Goldenthal’s music is more emphatic than we would sometimes wish. It lends the film feeling, but also presses us towards sympathy when Neeson has already done plenty of persuading.
Alan Rickman’s Eamon de Valera brings a useful complication. Rickman gives the part menace without making it simple, suggesting calculations that the central portrait is less willing to entertain. His performance provides some resistance to the film’s enthusiasm for Collins, and it is welcome. Jordan’s screenplay settles our sympathies early, leaving the supporting characters a good deal of work if they are to make us question the man at the centre.
That partiality is the film’s chief weakness as political biography. Jordan does not need to deliver a lecture or pretend to have no preferences, but he makes Collins too easy to admire. His treatment of the British is too broad, and the simplification makes the choices facing his hero seem less open to challenge. The thriller supplies danger and unease, yet the portrait keeps encouraging approval when it might profitably leave us uncomfortable.
There is still enough dramatic life here to justify the 132 minutes. Neeson and Rickman make the political conflict worth following, while Jordan’s handling of action prevents the history from becoming a procession of names and positions. Viewers looking for a historical thriller will have a better evening than those expecting a searching biography. See it for the performances and the suspense, and keep a little scepticism for the history.
