Released in 1996, Michael Collins tells the story of the early 20th century struggle of Ireland to gain independence from Britain.

Liam Neeson stars as Michael “Mick” Collins, the revolutionary leader who perfected the use of guerilla warfare against the British and then, in the greatest of ironies, found himself fighting some of his former allies during the Irish Civil War.  Aidan Quinn plays Mick’s friend and fellow revolutionary, Harry Boland.  Both Harry and Mick fall in love with Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts).  Stephen Rea shows up as Ned Broy, a member of the Dublin police department who is inspired by Mick’s words to become a double agent.  Charles Dance has a cameo as the fearsome Soames, a British intelligence agent who is sent to Ireland to violently put down the Irish insurgency.  Finally, Alan Rickman plays Eamon de Valera, who goes from being one of Mick’s strongest allies to being one of his fiercest rivals.  The film follows Collins from the Easter Rising of 1916 to his eventual assassination in 1922, providing a look at the history of Ireland that is as much directed towards those outside of Ireland as those on the inside.

When watching Michael Collins, it helps to have a working knowledge of Irish history.  Otherwise, it can occasionally be a bit difficult to keep track of who is angry with who at any particular point in time.  Of course, it should be noted that the movie itself is not exactly historically accurate.  In the film, the gentle and likable Ned Broy becomes a victim of British bloodlust.  In real life, Ned Broy outlived Michael Collins by several decades and died peacefully at the age of 84.  For that matter, the film presents Eamon de Valera as being coldly Machiavellian and it suggests that de Valera was jealous of Mick’s popularity.  Though both Rickman and director Neil Jordan later said it wasn’t intentional, the film also seems to suggest that de Valera played a role in Collins’s assassination.  While Eamon de Valera remains a controversial figure for many reasons (including his neutrality during World War II), Jordan has said that he feels de Valera was not necessarily treated fairly in Michael Collins and indeed, de Valera — who plays as big a role in the founding of the Irish republic as anyone — is portrayed as often being ineffectual and unwilling to truly put himself at risk to fight the British.  De Valera’s relationship with Collins was undoubtedly more complex than portrayed in this film but, when one makes a movie for an international audience, nuance is often the first thing that’s abandoned.

Seen today, 29 years after it was released, Michael Collins is an impressively made film that has a few inescapable flaws.  It’s gorgeous to look at, full of moody shots of dark Dublin streets.  The violence is often shocking and Jordan doesn’t shy away from considering the moral implications of Collins’s guerilla warfare.  Michael Collins doesn’t make the mistake of blindly celebrating violence, which would be a valuable lesson for the world’s current crop of self-styled revolutionaries if they were only willing to hear it.  Having gotten used to seeing Liam Neeson cast in one generic action film after another, it was interesting to watch Michael Collins and see what a good actor he truly could be.  Even in 1996, He was perhaps a few years too old to playing a man who was only 31 when he died but Neeson still plays the role with a ferocious charisma that makes him believable as a leader.  His scenes with Aidan Quinn have a joie de vivre that brings out the both in best actors.  Alan Rickman is memorably sinister as Eamon de Valera and Stephen Rea’s gentle style makes Ned Broy into a truly tragic figure.  That said, the very American Julia Roberts feels miscast as Kitty Kiernan.  One gets the feeling that she was cast solely for her box office appeal.  Every film, the feeling goes, needs  a love story and those love stories need to be between people with familiar faces and Roberts is such a familiar face that her every appearance in the film feels like a distraction from the story being told.  That said, the film captures the excitement and danger of being in the middle of history-making events.  It’s a historical epic that’s never boring and manages to hold the viewer’s interest.

Michael Collins is ultimately a flawed but entertaining look at the early days of the Irish republic.