A Belfast Story

Sometimes press kits arrive in the post, quirky little toys that somehow tie in with the movie - most of the time it's tat, forgettable, throwaway stuff. Independently produced post-Troubles thriller A Belfast Story announced itself with a press kit that one won't forget in hurry - a wooden box sporting a balaclava, nail bomb paraphilia, and other terrorist bric-a-brac. Director Nathan Todd has apologised for the rather tasteless kit, but job done: everyone knew about A Belfast Story. Unfortunately, the film itself isn't as noteworthy.

Colm Meaney plays a Belfast detective whose political slant once edged towards loyalist, so he's in no hurry to locate the killers of the gruesome murder of a former IRA bomber. With the peace process still on shaky ground, the police want the murder to be kept under wraps but when more and more bodies crop up, all ex IRA men, panic reaches the halls of Stormont where the First Minister (O'Neill) hopes his own violent past won't resurface along with the rekindled hate.

It's a great idea for a story, tapping into the impotent hate some must feel at watching their loved ones killers walk free, forever untouchable. The animated credit sequence that takes us from Celtic myth to car bombings is impressive stuff, if rather long, and Paddy Rocks, playing an ex-Loyalist sneaking about the city to dispense his old school justice on the killers before the police find them, radiates icy menace.

But it's slim pickings. Nathan Todd is fine pointing the camera, and the film has a consistent pace, but the woeful dialogue lets the side down. Meaney has poetic, Chandler-esque lines which would be fine as a narration but sound silly coming out of the character's mouth - especially when he's sitting on his couch at home with no one else in the room. The Stormont scenes - where smart people versed in political chicanery, bluntly tell each other things they already know - are laughable; the back-and-forth between Tommy O'Neill and Maggie Cronin is especially bad. No subtlety, no finesse.

A Belfast Story seems to be for those unversed in the Troubles and the current situation - anyone with a modicum of knowledge will find it a bit obvious.