Black 47 movie review & film summary (2018)

Martin is, admittedly, not the film's only protagonist. Unfortunately, Inspector Hannah (Hugo Weaving)—an equally disenchanted ex-British soldier who is forced to track and capture Martin—isn't more substantial. Like, Frecheville, Weaving spends most of his time on-screen smoldering behind his whiskers. If you find that sort of thing sexy: boy, is "Black 47" the movie for you. Everyone else will have to bear with several scenes where Weaving bides his time as prissy British soldier Pope (Freddie Fox) tries to maintain a stiff upper lip, and starry-eyed horse groomer Hobson (Barry Keoghan) drags his feet. Also, opportunistic Irish collaborator Conneely (the great Stephen Rea) is there too, but he doesn't even do as much as his equally inert co-stars.

Hannah's posse slowly catches up to Martin—a character whose lack of psychological depth and knack for killing makes him more like Jason Voorhees than John Rambo—and inevitably breaks apart once they finally catch up and reckon with Martin. "Black 47" is, in that sense, a fairly standard exploitation film, one where viewers are asked to cheer on Martin as he outpaces his pursuers and brutally executes an elite cadre of mustache-twirling antagonists (including poor Jim Broadbent, sigh). 

Viewers are also asked to commiserate with Martin since his insatiable blood lust supposedly speaks to his character as a hollow man who kills and kills again because he has nothing to show for his loyal service. Granted, revenge and violence never accomplish much in "Black 47," but that just begs the question of why the filmmakers chose to follow a character whose only sympathetic qualities are his unrestrained anger and proficiency at murdering people. 

It's entirely possible that Martin makes more sense to Irish viewers, since they can presumably relate with Martin's anti-British sentiments better than this reviewer did. Unfortunately, in the film, Martin often comes across like any other crazed, but ostensibly relatable antihero who wracks up kills and then slumps over in pseudo-tragic exhaustion. "Black 47" consequently feels like an unmemorable power fantasy whose only novelty is its focus on century-old grievances. Watch him kill, see them die, over and over, and then over again.