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This '90s Political Thriller Starring Alan Rickman and Liam Neeson Still Resonates Today

Published 1 month ago6 minute read

It’s been nine years since the great died and Hollywood continues to miss him dearly. The actor, known for his languid voice, first made a name for himself when he played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The role earned him a Tony nomination and, from there, he never looked back. Rickman found greater glory after portraying the German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard. For the next three decades, the calls kept coming, asking him whether he’d be interested in this and that,

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Michael Collins

October 25, 1996

132 minutes

Neil Jordan

Stephen Woolley

is another actor who has achieved as much success as Alan Rickman. Over the years, the actor has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. You wouldn’t imagine it, given how wooden his acting has been lately, but this is the same person who wowed the world in Schindler’s List.

Alan Rickman and Liam Neeson once starred in a movie together, and if random people were asked to guess what genre it was, they’d probably guess action. Neeson vowing to find and kill a villain played by Rickman? Sounds good, but their work together is a tense biopic about the Irish politician, Michael Collins.

Exploring both societal marginality and the culture of territorial bullying, Michael Collins remains a daring, compelling work by director Neil Jordan (creator of the TV shows, The Borgias and Riviera). The biographical film from British rule in the early 20th century.

The film begins at the end of the Easter Rising of 1916 (armed insurrection during Easter week). We see a few Irish republicans surrendering themselves to the British Army after being overpowered. They pray for mercy but are instead executed by firing squad. Because he was born in America,

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Later, Collins walks free, gets appointed as the Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and orchestrates major guerrilla warfare against British forces. Meanwhile, De Valera heads to America to try and secure President Roosevelt’s support for an independent Ireland but fails to do so.

Cracks soon form in Collins and De Valera's friendship when the former Their relationship becomes strained and combative. De Valeria insists on a continued fight for full independence, but is ignored by Collins, whose blind ego and swaggering authority trigger unendurable tensions. Predictably, things don't end well.

Michael Collins was At the time of its release, it was one of the costliest films ever made in Ireland. Thankfully, there was no loss. The film made about $8 million more than its budget and won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, with Liam Neeson scooping Best Actor. At the Oscars, it was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Cinematography.

Michael Collins resonates because It tells a story that is more than a century old, yet, in it, w Better yet, their implications are clearly shown. In the film, Collins heavily relies on guerilla warfare to force the British to act. It works. He is then called to London to discuss Irish interests as part of the larger Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Its details cause friction within the rebels, but progress is made.

In the modern age,nternal fallouts are likely to happen during times like these, since some harbor such deep hatred for the enemy that they see negotiation as a sign of weakness.

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Beyond that, the biopicCollins’ revolutionary work puts a strain on his relationship with his fiancée, Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts). The same Kitty of formal dreams of the idealistic, family-pleasing nuptials, so Collins finds himself hounded by the draining, never-ending process of planning a wedding. Additionally, his political moves earn him new and dangerous foes that he would rather do without. In the end, he pays dearly for his actions, despite wanting to do the right thing all along.

On top of that, the territorial conflicts we see in the movie are still common today. Putin and Ukraine, Trump and Greenland, China challenging Taiwan’s sovereignty, history keeps repeating itself. Most importantly, we are reminded of how America has a say in just about every major political event in the world. De Valera seeks President Wilson’s support, but POTUS understands the implications, so he stays neutral.

Great movies need strong heroes and strong heroes. In the case of Michael Collins, there was a clear strong hero, but who was the real villain of the story? Questions have been asked for a long time, but rather than pick someone from the British side or even create a fictional character, . Perhaps he had always dreamed of using Alan Rickman as a villain.

The movie It’s well known that the two men feuded, but whether De Valeria became a schemer isn’t known. Instead, he is remembered as a statesman. De Valera He was also the world’s oldest leader at one point.

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Speaking to RTÉ, Neil Jordan insisted that the Oscar-nominated biopic is accurate in terms of the "broader political set of decisions de Valera made at the time", but

Alan Rickman also had something to say. During a chat with the Irish Times, he said:

"If I were sitting here with the de Valera family, I'd say: `Believe me, I spent a lot of time and energy fighting his corner, in terms of not judging him. But I can't answer for what the director or the studio do.' In the script, there was a very important moment - which was cut - which made it clear that he didn’t harm Collins. But other forces wanted the film to end on a romantic notion rather than a political one."

The film has a few other flaws in history, but the director defends it, arguing that he had to find the perfect balance between telling an accurate story and appealing to wider audiences. We don’t fault him. There are tons of historically inaccurate movies out there that are still fun to watch. This is Hollywood, after all.

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