Maze

I was hoping this would have moved irish cinema forward a bit. Unfortunately it succeeded in doing the exact opposite.

There was a great lack of authenticity regarding the prison atmosphere, the supposed northern Ireland accents of some of the actors, the location( shot in Cork southern ireland and didn't care to hide that fact in the film). You would expect a prison drama to be a bit gritty and claustrophobic and maybe even instill a sense of menace. This felt more like an adult day care center where you could sit and drink a cup of tea with your custodian. Some performances worked but overall the film was embarrassing to watch as the amateurish holes appeared one after another.

A little slow for the first 2/3s and as an American, it was sometimes hard to understand the Irish accent. But overall, not a bad movie. I would have made the prison fight scenes a little more realistic.

Some may regard this movie as too slow-paced, but I thought it had enough suspense and tension to keep me engaged throughout.

The acting from the 3 leads Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Barry Ward, and Martin McCann was quite solid, and the film was ably written and directed by Stephen Burke.

In some ways, the movie reminded me of the 1963 classic "The Great Escape".

Maze is a movie based on the biggest prison escape in Europe. A prison escape of 38 IRA members, a movie on how they planned and executed it. Even though the entire movie is in prison you really never have a dull moment. I doubt that there was not more tension between the Loyalists and the IRA members, like they portray it in this movie, but all in all it was not really about the hate towards eachother but more about the planning of the escape out of this maximum security prison. The cast was good, all the actors did what they were supposed to do. Maze is an entertaining movie that could have used a bit more violence and suspense to make it a better movie, but it's certainly worth watching.

I am disappointed, as an American, that I did not learn more about the Troubles from this movie. It's one of the reasons I watched it. Everything seemed to be skimmed over as if every viewer already had the knowledge needed. Wrong.

I tried to figure out how I would make this movie better and I can't - because I am not Northern Irish (Scottish). I do think this was a lost opportunity.

That's why the average score. None of the characters had depth, so we didn't really care about them. Maybe the Guard whose family was almost shot, but that's about it. Otherwise, can't tell you a thing about anyone else. How sad. How very sad for a missed opportunity to educate people to a VERY important period in Irish history.