Word: mcparlan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film focuses on the detective, McParlan (Richard Harris), who becomes a Molly himself, participates in their activities, adopts their life-style and turns them in to be hung. McParlan's evilness is particularly compelling because he is a conscious and full human being rather than the kind of one-dimensional Establishment caricature that we see so often in films. As a many-faceted human being, McParlan is far more real, dangerous, and frightening than the crackers in Easy Rider the cops in Medium Cool, or the fascists...
...acting of all the major characters is very fine. Sean Connery plays Jack Kehoe, the restrained, calculating, tormented leader of the Mollies and Samantha Egger portrays Mary, who rejects McParlan's love on finding out he is a detective. His relationship with her seems at best secondary and is probably unnecessary to the film...
...McParlan's inner predicament at the end of the film is the price paid by the Establishment for the continuation of his exploitation and suppression of the Irish laborers. The fact that they are able to concentrate their accumulated guilt on a single individual is witness to the spiritually and morally destructive nature of their motives. The elimination of the Maguires required a treachery born of a craving for money and power, the guilt steeped motives of twentieth-century capitalism. The "relevance" of this film has been denounced as an effort towards topicality- but the original script was in fact...