You wait a year to see Tom Vaughan-Lawlor in a film, and then you get two, one after the other.
Next Friday sees the release of the feel-good football movie The Beautiful Game, but before that we have Baltimore, the story of English heiress turned IRA member Rose Dugdale, who died aged 83 earlier this week. Imogen Poots stars in the lead role, and Vaughan-Lawlor plays Dominic, a member of Dugdale's IRA unit.
In January 1974, Dugdale attempted to bomb the British Army barracks in Strabane using a helicopter. Then, in April of that year, she led the Russborough House robbery, described as "the biggest art theft in the world". Paintings including a Vermeer, a Goya, two Gainsboroughs, and three Rubens were stolen, and the ransom was set at £500,000.
Directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy's film loops from the robbery back to Dugdale's political awakening in college and on to "the biggest manhunt in the history of the State". It's an interesting depiction of the masks worn by desperate people, the narcotic effect of power, and art also becoming a victim of The Troubles. The performances are strong, and the sense of doom swirls like mist around Dugdale and co's hideaway.
The disappointment here is that Baltimore is not as tense as it could have been. Perhaps Lawlor and Molloy felt an adherence to thriller dynamics would cheapen their film, perhaps not - but the fact remains that an opportunity is missed to grab a bigger audience for 90 minutes and not let go. They should also have gone for the film's US title, Rose's War, rather than a bland option on this side of the pond.
This is a decent dramatisation of another fascinating chapter in Irish history and a worthwhile companion piece to the RTÉ documentary series The Heiress and The Heist. Those in search of a tougher, tighter offering should watch Vaughan-Lawlor in Dead Shot, Sky's under-the-radar IRA film from last year, which has no qualms about making the most of hunter-and-the-hunted dynamics.
