Dead Shot review: Colin Morgan is an IRA man out for revenge in this straightforward thriller set during the Troubles

Dead Shot (15A, 92mins)

There’ve been some decent ones — The Crying Game, In The Name Of The Father, and the more recent thriller ’71 — but most have failed to capture the grungy and nihilistic reality of that dirty, pointless war.

Charles and Tom Guard’s Dead Shot won’t be troubling the scorers come awards time, but does manage to compellingly recreate the febrile tensions of the IRA’s mid-70s bombing campaign in London.

The screenplay, by Belfast writer Ronan Bennett, may have been inspired by the exploits of the Balcombe Street gang, a daring Provo unit that carried out the Guildford pub bombings, as well as attacks on Harrods and the Old Bailey.

They even lobbed hand grenades into Sir Edward Heath’s private club. The IRA reckoned that one bomb in London was worth 30 in Belfast, a point of view vindicated by the panic they caused.

"Dead Shot does not detain itself with matters philosophical, not does it offer the viewer much in the way of geopolitical context: it’s a thriller, pure and simple”

What any of it achieved is quite another matter, but Dead Shot does not detain itself with matters philosophical, not does it offer the viewer much in the way of geopolitical context: it’s a thriller, pure and simple, and a pretty efficient one at that.

Active serviceman Micheal (Colin Morgan) is tired of the fight: his wife Carol (Máiréad Tyers) is pregnant and he’s hoping his immediate superior, Keenan (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), will allow him to retire.

Everything changes, however, when Micheal and Carol get caught up in an SAS ambush, and a soldier, Henry Tempest (Aml Ameen), mistakes her for a terrorist, shooting her dead.

While Henry is spirited back to London and recruited by an MI5 handler (Mark Strong) who’s forming an anti-terrorist hit squad, a devastated Micheal is hell-bent on revenge.

Keenan is prepared to give him some, and sends him to London to join a unit that’s planning a major bombing campaign. If Micheal agrees to participate in these attacks, Keenan will give him the name and location of the man who killed his wife.

Micheal’s handler in London is a young Englishwoman (Felicity Jones) with a mysterious connection with Keenan: but the unit he joins are hardcore and merciless, packing their bombs with shrapnel, intent on causing carnage. “We’re hitting Paddington,” their leader announces. “You mean the station?” Micheal asks.

“No, the f***ing bear.” It’s not what Micheal signed up for and as he zones in on Harry’s location, he will face a moral quandary.

Morgan is very good as Micheal, a young man drawn into the fight by the atrocities of the early 70s and now unable to find his way out.

Vaughan-Lawlor’s eyes pop as Keenan, the kind of sociopath that prospers in societal breakdowns. And Strong is wonderfully odious as the shady MI5 handler: as he accompanies Tempest up to north London to wipe out an IRA cell, he remarks jauntily, “you know I’ve never been to Kentish Town”.

At one point he announces to two soldiers, “can I have the room?”, using an odious, passive-aggressive 21st century American expression that would have been unheard of at the time. But it’s a joke: “You mean this room?” one of the soldiers asks, who is told to “f**k off”.

This is a spare and smart screenplay, aware of the near impossibility of recreating the mood and feel of mid-1970s Belfast, or London, but prepared to give it a good old try.

As we mentioned, there’s not much context for all this and viewers under the age of 40 might wonder what the IRA’s problem was in the first place.

But Dead Shot is good on period detail, and provides hints of the deep tensions underlying the conflict.

When Michael arrives in the UK by train, a plainclothes policeman refers to him as “Mick”, an endearment I remember from my time in London.

And when he’s going into a pub, we catch a glimpse of a sign on the door, which reads ‘No dogs, no blacks, no Irish’.

Rating: Three stars

Dead Shot is a Sky Original film, coming to Sky Cinema May 12th 2023.