The height of minimalism. I can imagine watching this at the time and place it was meant to be watched and having the feeling of being punched in the face but not sure by whom.

Hard to watch, partly because the movie really strains the patience. But knowing the background, I sort of want to admire it. It's uncompromising, deliberately unlovely and has no interest in winning a popularity contest.

If one goes in with the patience required, it's a hypnotic and nauseatingly real that sends a message clear as day without the obnoxiousness of actually saying it: this isn't cool, people are dying. It's not an action movie anymore. A sort of anti-action movie. A lot of it is conceptual, sort of like a Pollack painting only a lot less self-indulgent.

Impossible to forget.

In this picture not a word is spoken. Probably set in Northern-Ireland it consists of several unrelated scenes in which we follow, with the familiar 'HandyCam' shots of Alan Clarke one or two characters for several minutes until they approach a person ... and shoot him. I think it's the atmosphere, the long buildup before the actual kill, the complete lack of both emotion and conversation that made this movie work for me. Ten years after seeing this film I still remember several scenes. It gave me the feeling that I was watching the way the killings really happen(ed) in Ireland. I wish they would repeat it someday on television.

Sort of like watching a crime movie with everything but the shooting scenes edited out, or a bit like watching the world's most depressing, low key action movie.

You get an opening title that references The Troubles, and that's about it for context. Means that the violent acts - which is all there is, really - are oddly shocking at first and then maybe even tedious. It's depressing to see so much of it play out and just keep going until the movie at one point decides to end.

By being so stripped down and short, it leaves you with a lot to think about. It definitely had more of an impact on me than Clarke's similarly repetitive and low-key film Christine, too.