A searing, true-life drama of criminal injustice, Irish film maestro Jim Seridan’s In the Name of the Father takes liberties with the truth even as it bemoans those qualities in the authorities. In early 70s Belfast, Gerry Conlon is a petty crook who plays the mortally dangerous game of stripping lead from roofs. To the ever vigilant security forces he looks just like an IRA sniper, while to the terrorists he’s a pain and deserves knee-capping.
At eight o’clock in the evening of October 5, 1974, in a pub in Guildford, England, an IRA bomb explodes, killing five people. As public demands for justice grow to a fevered pitch, the police force, headed by Robert Dixon, is forced to turn to the most likely suspects without regard for their guilt or innocence. Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill, a pair of squatters recently arrived in London from Belfast, become prime targets. When Gerry’s father Giuseppe arrives from Ireland to help his son obtain a lawyer, he is charged with participating in an IRA support network.
In a trial high on speeches and rhetoric but low on facts, the “Guildford Four”, including Gerry and Paul, are sentenced to life in prison because the judge can’t find a reason to hang them, and Giuseppe is given fourteen years. When, after sentencing has been carried out, the police find incontrovertible evidence of the Conlons’ innocence, they keep it carefully buried until Gareth Peirce ferrets out the truth while attempting to get Gerry and Giuseppe’s convictions overturned.
As much as In the Name of the Father is about the true facts surrounding the conviction and eventual freeing of Gerry Conlon and his three innocent friends, the movie’s primary aim is more intimate and personal: to show the development of the relationship between an estranged father and son. When Gerry and Giuseppe arrive in prison, they are virtual strangers, distant and cold. Years later, both have confronted their hidden demons and made their peace with themselves and each other.
