Richie Markey (Brian F. O'Byrne), a thirty-something man who has come to a border town, Rosveagh, in a bid to win a contract to draw a map of the area for the local tourist board. Soon after he arrives, he realises that the people of this quaint town are not as genial as their surroundings may suggest and there's a tangible undercurrent of prejudice in the area. Upon further investigations, he learns that some years ago, a survey was conducted in the area that inadvertently led to a man, Peter Nowlan, disappearing after allegations surfaced that he may have been an IRA informer. When Richie accidentally stumbles upon the body of Nowlan during the course of his work, local hostilities reach fever pitch.While the premise sounds interesting on paper, the writer/ director of The Mapmaker, Johnny Gogan, seems to have little sense of how to pace a film or construct believable characters. The narrative lacks a certain dynamic and although the pace picks up in the final twenty minutes, The Mapmaker is a film in desperate need of insightful direction.
