Between 1845-1849, a potato blight spread across Ireland. This was a period of mass starvation throughout the country with roughly a million people losing their lives in the nightmare. 1847 was the worst year of this catastrophe, known to many as ‘black 47’. It is here where the titular film takes place.

Going into this film, I was very intrigued to see how the film would portray this dark time in Ireland’s history. Being a native to Ireland and being familiar with the history of the period. I was curious to know how far they would go when showing the state, the country and her people were in. The film did an impressive job of showing this hellish state. The natives wander through the wildness with the bones in their bodies sticking outwards, being evicted and oppressed by the British. The bodies pile high and the hope once so prevalent in the hearts of the Irish men and woman has been bludgeoned to death.

Unfortunately, that is where my praise for the film ends. While an impressive amount of attention was paid to bringing the period to life with accuracy, it appears that too much attention was paid to this aspect, other equally important aspects were clearly neglected because of it.

The issues with the narrative are plentiful, but the biggest and probably the most egregious sin is the abominable protagonist. He is bland and boring with no personality. The fact that the writers thought this was a good choice for a film that needed an emotional protagonist is extremely worrisome. The rest of the cast is a checklist of boring stereotypes and clichés. You have the snobby business focused Englishmen, you have the bitter old drunk who has had a bad experience in his past and last but least, the funny old Irish drunk. The last one is particularly worrisome, considering this is an Irish made film that’s playing into an assumption made by American films.

Of course, a film needs a plot as well as characters but unfortunately, this is another area where the film falls flat on its face. The plot centers around a soldier returning home from war to find his country in crisis. His mother fell ill and passed, and his brother has been hanged for stealing food. Feeling the anger of what is happening to his nation. He hunts down those responsible. The problem with the plot is that it feels so far-fetched. Most of the agency of the film relies on the protagonist mowing down dozens of British men without batting an eye. However, the stylized the top action film style of these killings just feels weird. The rest of the film is so grounded, but our main character is treated like he is the Terminator. With one murder halfway through the film involving a pig feeling laughably ridiculous. This would probably be easier to overlook if we felt any connection to the main character’s struggle, but we simply don’t. As mentioned before, his lack of emotion is a serious issue.

It’s a shame this film’s narrative issues hold it back because it’s clear from the scenes showing the horror of the famine and the damage it did to the country that a lot of heart and care went into it. Let this film be a lesson that no amount of heart or historical accuracy can save a story with boring characters.

I give ‘Black 47’ a 6.5/10