Hunger [2008]

How Osama Bin Laden must laugh at the idea of a "hunger strike". Explaining the slo-mo business to him would be like putting an F-22 Raptor pilot at the controls of Louis Blériot's monoplane. History has lent a new perspective to the story of IRA man Bobby Sands and his 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland's Maze prison for political status, recreated here in Hunger, Steve McQueen's explicit, but icily brilliant and superbly acted film. It is a lacerating portrait of an agonised period of British and Irish history; I have watched it twice now, and each time have been unable to forget the famous "Chuckle Brothers" peace-process photo of a grinning Martin McGuinness next to a grinning Ian Paisley. Theirs, remarkably, was the rapprochement that the hunger strikes helped finally to bring about, by redefining terrorist prisoners as political bargaining chips, whose release can be quietly offered in part-exchange for a cessation of violence. The question of which side is the greater victor is difficult to answer.

• Actors: Liam Cunningham, Larry Cowan, Brian Milligan, Stuart Graham, Helena Bereen
• Directors: Steve McQueen
• Format: PAL
• Region: Region 2 ( DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 1
• Classification: 15
• Studio: Pathe Video
• DVD Release Date: 23 Feb 2009
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Link: Imdb