Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Ed-Shullivan Just watching how Irish farmer Bull McCabe (played by Richard Harris) literally devours the sandwiches that his lackey Bird O'Donnell (played by John Hurt) brought into the field while Bull's son Tadgh McCabe (Sean Bean) chomps on another sandwich and shares huge gulps of beer from a bottle with his dad all the while these two men are conspicuously grinning and not sharing the sandwiches nor the bottle of beer with Bird. Birds intensity in his face as he waits to see if and when either of these two men will share their food and drink with the man who delivered the food to them is a scene of pure beauty. When suddenly in between vociferous gulps of beer and vicious chomps on his sandwich Bull McCabe angrily asks Bird "what happened to the meat that is missing from this sandwich Bird?" Bird responds to Bull's implication that he would never touch Bull McCabes lunch without permission from the tough as nails Bull. Then a smile is seen shaping on Bull and his son Tadgh's faces as the game is over and they offer poor Bird a tidbit of their lunch. All three then share a hearty laugh. It is a scene where the audience is not sure whether Bull is going to lay a beating on the much smaller and weaker Bird O'Donnell, share part of the men's lunch and drink with Bird, or try to make Bird look like a fool.The Field is a story about one man's desire to maintain his family legacy which is the green green grass in their rented field at any and all costs. All families have good and bad memories to reflect on. In the case of the McCabe family, theirs is a story of silence, the death of one son, and the desire to take great pride in the field that Bull McCabe and his now only heir Tadgh McCabe have to work seven days a week.The McCabe family story is a tragic set of living in the past, present and as far as the future can see. Bull's son Tadgh soon realizes through his new found gypsy girlfriend a "Tinker" no less named Katie (Jenny Conroy) that there is more to life than working the field for the rest of their lives.The scenery in Ireland is breathtaking, the acting by Richard Harris should have won him an Academy Award back in 1990, yet he was not even nominated which I think was a grave injustice for a truly outstanding lead actor performance by Richard Harris. Not to be outdone John Hurt as Bird O'Donnell, Sean Bean as Tadgh McCabe, Tom Berenger as the American infiltrator Peter, Bull's wife Maggie McCabe played by Brenda Fricker, and the towns Catholic parish priest Father Chris Doran played by Sean McGinley were all captivating performances that kept the audience wanting to know more about this small little farming towns people and their dependency on the Catholic church.As good as The Field is, it is above anything else a tragic life story that revolves around Bull McCabe, his legacy farming field and his family. This is a film well worth watching with so many great performances, beautiful scenery, yet with a tragic outcome.I give the film a solid 8 out 10 rating. It has not lost any of its beautiful lustre over the succeeding 28 years since its release date in 1990.

Irishchatter I swear, the amount of killings and the fact the film took really long, made me very bored and confused to what the hell was going on! Yeah I know what the story was about a farmer who wants the field from a widow but with so much things going on with this film, I just can't keep up with it! It was rather long and depressing too, the large amount of killings made me understand less on why some characters had to be killed off. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the Godfather, Love/Hate or any gangster film that involves a large amount of killings. What was the point of it anyways even if it was a thriller?I shouldn't have even stepped on this film, it was just terrible and if the play version of it came to my local theatre, I would happily avoid it! It just was a very depressing, boring and stupid Irish movie you would ever see in your entire life!

kennellygerard There are irish films that deserve to be watched and there are irish films you should avoid like the plague. The Field is the latter.Richard Harris plays a man who intimidates everyone he meets, he has two sons.. he bullied one until he committed suicide, he is trying to bully the other one into marrying a lady he doesn't even know because she is wealthy, he bullies his wife when she eats dinner. Bull is an odious excuse for a human being.Bull's son spends his nights bullying a defenseless woman. When Bull finds out the lady has been intimidated he acts high and mighty, he condemns what the son did. To hear this coming from a man who bullies people 7 days a week is sickening.When a local piece of land is up for sale he tries to take over the auction in the (false) assumption that everybody else is afraid of him. The local bar owner despises Bull and even tries to get a rise out of him by suggesting an outsider will bid against him.An American starts to bid against Bull, a young man with no shortage of money. This puts Bull over the edge so he begins a campaign of intimidation that will ultimately ends in murder.The local priest wants the community to have a fair auction where anyone can bid without fear. When the priest confronts him Bull tries to deflect his vile behavior by mentioning how corrupt the church was during the famine.It's no secret that director Jim Sheridan and John B Keane had a falling out. John B didn't like how different the film is compared to the play. In Sheridan's defense the play is even worse, in the play Bull McCabe boasts that he beat a donkey to death with his bare fists. Ironically John B Keane's son Billy was on an irish talk show and he said the only part of the the film he didn't like was the animals going off the cliff.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a small, taut, tragic story of Richard Harris, as Bull McCabe, a sclerotic Irish patriarch who plans on buying at auction the grassy field that he and his family have worked on (and died on) for many years. The land is owned by a widow, however, who has been harassed by Harris and his son, Sean Bean, and is determined to see that the McCabe's don't get it. When a wealthy American (Tom Berenger) shows up, interested in building a cement highway across the field, and harnessing the local waterfalls for hydroelectric power, it certainly looks like McCabe isn't going to get it.Well, McCabe gets it, but not before he accidentally beats Berenger to death and hides the body. It costs him everything he has -- whatever peace of mind he had, his money, his son, his status in the church, his friends, his cattle, and finally his sanity. He who has been virtually running the village, snarling out gruff orders to others, now runs wild, alone, stampeding his cattle over a cliff and onto the rocks below, ranting and screaming like Lear on the moor, driving his son over the cliff as well. After this, still bellowing, McCabe wades out into the sea to his death.Richard Harris does a bang-up, pretty much overwrought job in this role, which was his last. He looks like Michelangelo's sculpture of Pope Julius II, with his remaining gray hair like an unruly coxcomb atop his head and this beard of Biblical proportions. It's the kind of performance that cries out for an Academy Award nomination. Harris got the nomination but didn't win. It was a depressing story about the small-minded people of an Irish village in the 1930s, flailing about in the rain and mud. Not a big star in it. Who needed it? Though, come to think of it, James Coburn won an award for a similar dramatic role after a similar lifetime career playing support or leads in routine movies. Coburn was good in "Affliction" but Harris does a better job with a more complex role here.Well, I wasn't surprised that Harris didn't win, nor did I particularly care. Movies about feuds over a plot of land usually don't win Oscars. Usually the awards go to far better films, films with artistic content that illustrate the human condition, thoughtful and challenging films that carry a great deal of philosophical weight -- "Titanic" and "Pearl Harbor," for instance.If nothing else, "The Field" is a corrective to fairyland presented to us in "The Quiet Man." Having said that, can I still recommend seeing this movie? Not only is Richard Harris great in it, but so is just about everyone else, including John Hurt as a semi-retard, Sean Bean as the sensitive son, Tom Berenger as the not-insensitive rich American, and a host of nameless supporting players.Yes, it is a small movie about a small thing. But small things can carry stones of symbolic weight. A slap in the face is a small thing.