Durango

Most corny old Irish films feature Irish Catholic farming villages, and I guess it seems only fair to have an Irish film with lower-class Protestant cattle herders, featuring a feisty pastor(instead of the usual Catholic priest) and a fiery, bad-tempered, but good-hearted middle-aged woman in tow, succeeding against the odds to get fair earnings (against some wealthy Catholics, for fair measure and complete reversal of the usual stereotype). A side story includes a Irish Army deserter who is determined to join the British army instead, in time to fight Hitler (yeah, right!) Not to say the film is better or worse than the usual sickeningly sweet Irish movie plot, but there is an attempt here to portray Irish Protestants as champions of the rural countryside and underdogs in class conflicts. I'm not sure many Americans will even recognize the ways this film tweaks past depictions of Irish country life, while presenting a very familiar package.