The Devil's Own (1997) on Netflix
Frankie McGuire, an IRA gunman, comes to New York as Rory Devaney to buy black-market missiles. Judge Fitzsimmons lodges him with Sergeant Tom O'Meara, who takes him for a construction worker.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.2/1078,898 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes36%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1972 Northern Ireland, eight-year-old Frankie McGuire sees his father gunned down for his republican sympathies. Twenty years later he is an IRA soldier in Belfast. After a British Army ambush, his commander Martin MacDuff decides the IRA needs Stinger missiles. Under the alias Rory Devaney, Frankie reaches New York City to buy them, and Judge Peter Fitzsimmons arranges for him to stay with the family of Sergeant Tom O'Meara, who believe their guest is an immigrant construction worker.
Cast
- Ashley Acarinoas Morgan O'Meara
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Devil's Own (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Two months before her death, Diana, Princess of Wales took 15-year-old Prince William and 12-year-old Prince Harry to see The Devil's Own, restricted to viewers 15 and older; she persuaded the cinema to let Harry, three years underage, stay, and later apologized for not knowing the film's content.
- Brad Pitt threatened to quit The Devil's Own early in the shoot because the script was incomplete and incoherent, and later called it 'the most irresponsible bit of film making' he had ever seen.
- While preparing for the role, Brad Pitt visited Belfast and was attacked on the city's Falls Road after being identified as a Protestant, leaving him with bruises.
- Gene Hackman and Sean Connery had both been considered for the role of Tom O'Meara before, at Brad Pitt's suggestion, Harrison Ford was approached; Ford's part was then rewritten from a supporting role into a fuller one opposite Pitt.
- Two months before it opened, The Devil's Own was still unfinished: unhappy with the final scene, a showdown on a boat with Stinger missiles, Alan J. Pakula called the actors and crew back, and it was rewritten and reshot over two days at a California studio.
- In March 1996, Alan J. Pakula hired screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen to provide rewrites during production; Kamen said they were 'running out of script to shoot' because the script satisfied neither star, and that 'we were flying blind'.
- The Devil's Own was the last film of director Alan J. Pakula, who died the year after its release, and the last one photographed by Gordon Willis, who retired soon after.
- The film's Northern Ireland scenes were shot instead in the Republic of Ireland for security reasons, including the opening scenes at Port Oriel, Clogherhead, County Louth.
