Upon the riots that strike the Belfast streets during the 1970s, a young courageous soldier finds himself estranged from his team and stands alone in such a hard circumstances, the thing that challenges him and threatens his life, as he has to survive and return to his team safely, but incidents come to frustrate him.
Demange's feature debut miraculously distills the often Byzantine nature of the power politics behind The Troubles in a deeply intimate chamber piece about a single day in the life of a British soldier.
'71 doesn't pretend that better times are near (Bloody Sunday is just a year ahead), though it does finally proffer a few shreds of humanity against a future we know will be terribly bleak.
The film doesn't take sides, but shows how conflict stirs the pot of human emotions and how quickly things can get out of control. And it shows that in war, no one is right.
It's O'Connell's film and he's very fine indeed, even making you forgive the occasional (and expected) lapses into 'shaky cam'.
San Francisco Chronicle
March 12, 2015
If you are in the mood for a confusing and thoroughly depressing immersion into Irish history, you can't do better. But that would be a very odd mood to be in.
He's a passive hero, mostly getting buffeted along by events and people beyond his control. But '71 is no less of a deadly game of cat and mouse for that, focusing more on the other players in this very bad night.
People died, but it's more than the bombs, bullets and bodies. The more fascinating damage was done to psyches and souls, and Demange, with '71, comes for yours.