Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

planet_benisti The film is based on a true story it is wel played and filmed.

sddavis63 Canadian soldiers have participated in many UN peacekeeping missions over the years and have known their share of failures caused by UN bungling - Gen. Romeo Dallaire and the Rwanda massacre being the best example. That history made me as a Canadian interested in a movie about this failed UN peacekeeping mission. Apparently the Irish government largely covered up this incident from the 1961 civil war in The Congo, in which a force of Irish peacekeepers was sent in under the authority of the United Nations and ended up coming under attack from a much larger force of Congolese rebels and international mercenaries. Acquitting themselves well, the fact that they were forced to surrender because they had run out of ammunition, were heavily outnumbered and because of atrocious UN bungling led to them being regarded as cowards and to their mission being considered a black mark against the Irish Army. It wasn't until the 21st century that an Irish Government review cleared "A" Company of the accusations against them and they were recognized and honoured, as they should have been all along.The story is a good one and holds up the bungling and backroom wheeling and dealing for everyone to see, while the various bunglers left "A" Company and its plight largely ignored. Where does one begin with the mistakes or bad calls that were made. An Irish company with no battle experience under the command of an officer who had read a lot about battles but had never been in one was sent into the middle of a civil war. The UN leader on the ground (O'Brien) who was an academic with no sense of the strategic realities of the situation. The French (represented in a brief scene by de Gaulle) arranging for French mercenaries to get involved in the civil war against the UN forces. A local population in the area of Jadotville (where the Irish compound was located) who didn't want the UN or the Irish there. An Irish general who seems too paralyzed to do anything. The whole thing was a tragedy waiting to happen from the very beginning.Thankfully, there's not much time given to the backstories of any of the Irish soldiers. This was meant to be a war movie (even though it was about peacekeeping) and it gets into the situation leading up to the battle pretty quickly. I thought Jamie Dornan did a fantastic job as Quinlan - the Irish commander of "A" Company, and Mark Strong as Conor Cruise O'Brien captured the image of the incompetent UN bureaucrat who knows a lot but who has no real clue what to do.This is not a very well known historical incident. I didn't realize when I sat down to watch it, for example, that this was the incident in which UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold was killed in a plane crash while en route to try to negotiate an end to the civil war. It's a well told story, it's only weakness perhaps being that the average viewer (not particularly aware of the incident - and I count myself among those) might have benefited from a bit more of the political background to the story, as well as a bit fuller account of the negotiations that led to the Irish troops being released after their surrender and a month in captivity. (9/10)

david-fernandez Set in the 1960s a 150 strong and very green U.N. Irish regiment holds off a Congo / French mercenary military force which is 20 times their number defending a remote radio station camp.This actually did happen and there was U.N. political incompetence and U.N. political tragedy after the president of the Congo was assassinated for nationalising the mineral rich Cobalt and Uranium mines in the area which paid mercenaries and the new corrupt president and his army vowed to defend for the companies and keep them as private entities.These Irish soldiers were seriously left to die almost by the U.N. in a political game which saw them face impossible odds and in the face of adversity they showed immense bravery. The movie ends in a rather sombre mood which makes us realise that there is often more honour amongst soldiers than there is with politicians.

Robert Vigil Movie was okay but I can't help but think the action was largely over dramatized considering not a single man was lost. However that is not the reason I am rating it so low. Call me a stick up the ass but I like attention to detail and realism and honestly this siege made me cringe over and over again. Tactics on the part of the Frenchman were horrendous. There was a nearby hill that was never tactically used and meanwhile they just kept running in with numbers from the same side every time. (and I thought he was supposed to be a brilliant contractor or something) They also never used their artillery, easily could have spent the whole time just landing bombs on them until they surrender which is probably what really happened. Also, every time I had to watch the sniper reload a bullet in the chamber he made me cringe. (if you don't know why then don't worry about it.)Lastly there were a few other funky scenes like that that stood out to me but one I remember in particular is when the enemy forces came with a mounted heavy machine gun at one point there was a guy holding it by its barrel as they were shooting. I still have scars from when I grabbed a hot barrel as a child.