'71

American audiences will know English actor Jack O’Connell best for his affecting turn as Christian Olympian and POW Louis Zamperini in last year’s Unbroken. His performance, a balance of manly resolve and boyish vulnerability, was the most successful element of that film. While his new starring role is far different in tone and style, O’Connell draws on these same strengths to lift what might otherwise feel like a straightforward historical thriller to gut-wrenching levels.

In ’71, O’Connell plays Gary Hook, a British army recruit deployed to Belfast at the height of the Troubles. The story’s overarching irony comes early when he tells his younger brother not to worry about him—he’s “not even leaving the country.” Because of course he is. Northern Ireland may technically be a part of the United Kingdom, but to the Catholic Republicans he is about to encounter Hook is a member of an invading army.

This fact jarringly dawns on him while providing backup to the Royal Ulster Constabulary during a house-to-house search for IRA weapons. Within seconds, Gary confronts rioters, is separated from his unit, watches his friend get shot in the head, and suddenly finds himself alone behind enemy lines. From there, his flight for survival is both literally and figuratively dark. The violence and constant profanity of the R-rated ’71, while realistic-seeming, convey as much a sense of hopelessness as images of burning cars and screaming mothers in the night.

The film touches on the politics that inform the action but not enough to provide much context. All the audience can ascertain is that the army has divided the streets into religious factions, yet these designations have next to nothing to do with anyone’s actual faith. “What are you, Protestant or Catholic?” a foul-mouthed, street-wise Irish boy asks Hook. “I don’t know,” Hook replies. His bewildered, desperate expression in that moment conveys a thousand words about the wages of using God’s name as a cover for seeking power.