Memorable, crazy movie

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

But not excellent. Shot in the fashion of "Bloody Sunday," but the jittery hand-held cameras and "natural lighting" come off as contrived here and do not enhance the unfolding of the horror story that was Omagh on August 15th, 1998. I was in Ireland then, but in the South, when we heard the dreadful news.This film helps to fill in some of the background and make it all very real. Gerard McSorley plays the reluctant hero, Michael Gallagher, a shy mechanic, who is thrust into the spotlight by the other victims' families and heads up the Support Group that hounds the government and police forces for answers and accountability.Sadly, to this day, there has been no one charged for the atrocity and it appears that the police on both sides of the border, at the urging of politicians, were complicit in not pursuing a thorough investigation. The story carries one along, both in sympathy and a slowly dawning disgust at the way these unfortunate families are treated.Many small bit parts - Brenda Fricker plays the ombudsman who brings truth to the group. Good television fare but hardly worth the high end rental for the above noted irritants. 8 out of 10.

This movie caught me up from the first few minutes til the last. I completely agree with the reviewers who praise its understated and authentic feel and don't agree at all with the person(s) who thought it was "jerky" and "obvious." It was extremely well done, humane and engaging. And to the reviewer who said we, in the United States, don't get to see such important fare b/c our news media keeps recycling the same story ad nauseum, AMEN. But it is not only our news media, but the fact that hardly any movie audience in America could or would sit through such an un-Hollywood like movie, without any soundtrack, FOR GAWD's SAKE, that also keeps us stupid and uninformed. Luckily, I can afford to have Dish Network and was able to see this unexpected gem on the Sundance channel. To all others, please see it some way or other.

I do not believe I have ever seen a movie that more truthfully and compellingly captures tragedy than Pete Travis's Omagh.Omagh tells the story of the 1998 Real IRA bombing that killed 29 people in the city of Omagh, Northern Ireland, and the aftermath that followed. Yet what endears me to this film is that this could have been any town, any family, any tragedy. The film is completely without frills. It is one of the few films I've seen that does not romanticize death and tragedy. It has no towering musical score telling your emotions where to go (there is no score at all, actually), no dramatic final words, no sanguine epitaphs. Instead, Travis shows us what the camera usually leaves out -- the dirty dishes after the funeral party has left your house, the ubiquitous reporters asking for pictures of the deceased, the kind but nuisance of a neighbor offering help when you just want to be left alone.The technical aspects of the film were all very well done, as were the actors' performances. Everything about the film makes you feel as though you are looking through a window into what really happened at Omagh, rather than watching an screen adaptation of the events. Omagh is well worth a see.

OMAGH Aspect ratio: 1.78:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalUnlike its voracious American counterpart, British TV is generally reticent about dramatizing true-life crimes and atrocities, fearful of causing public offence and generating protest in self-righteous tabloid newspapers. Writer-director Paul Greengrass (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) has been negotiating this delicate minefield since 1994, producing some of the most compelling works in British TV history (including "Bloody Sunday" and THE MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE). And while he didn't direct OMAGH - an account of the search for justice following the Real IRA car bomb which exploded in the Irish market town of Omagh in August 1998 - his style is writ large over the entire production. Co-written by Greengrass and Guy Hibbert (SHOT THROUGH THE HEART), the film was directed by Pete Travis, a relative newcomer who distinguished himself in 2003 with his acclaimed TV drama HENRY VIII.OMAGH focuses on Michael Gallagher (veteran actor Gerard McSorley), a quiet mechanic thrust into the media spotlight following his decision to pursue the shadowy figures who murdered his 21 year old son Aiden (along with so many others) on that dreadful afternoon. From the outset, the movie unspools with documentary precision, using hand-held cameras to enhance the sense of realism: The principal 'characters' are introduced in piecemeal fashion, via quick cuts from one scene to the next, but there's very little specific dialogue in the build-up to the explosion, in which 29 people died and hundreds were injured (primarily because the terrorist's vaguely worded tip-off led police to guide people directly into the bomb's immediate orbit), and the aftermath is reproduced in vivid detail. These difficult scenes are as sordid as they are necessary - the victims' relatives insisted on it - and the widespread grief which followed this appalling incident is depicted through the experiences of the remaining Gallagher family. McSorley's subsequent quest for justice leads him into contact with a wide variety of players, everyone from low-level police informants to some of Ireland's most prominent figures, only to find himself stonewalled by the politics of compromise. To date, no one has been tried for the Omagh bombing.Respectful, honest and unemotional, this painful reminder of recent history simply records events as they occurred, without affectation or sensationalism. The acting is *peerless*, with McSorley a quiet tower of strength in the central role, matched every step of the way by Michèle Forbes as his distraught wife, and Brenda Fricker as police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan whose investigation into the Omagh inquiry uncovered a catalogue of errors and deceit. Campaigning television at its very best.