In the Name of the Father

Based on a True Story, this film starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite and Emma Thompson. Released in 1993, it chronicles the ordeal of the Guildford Four, a group of young Irishmen Wrongly Accused of bombing two soldiers' pubs in Guildford, England in 1974. At the height of The Troubles, all four were involved with drugs and petty crime, a profile the British police (wrongly) believed fit IRA terrorists. In fact Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis) left England to get away from the IRA who had threatened him for committing theft. After the bombing, police acted on a tip, arresting the four (and later Conlon family members, including Gerry Conlon's father Giuseppe). Coerced into falsely confessing by the police, the Four were convicted by this along with junk science at trial, and received life sentences.

The film uses dramatic license, showing Gerry and his father Postlethwaite imprisoned together (in Real Life they were separate) with their fight to survive inside, and meet one of the real bombers (also fictional; although the men responsible confessed at trial, exonerating the Guildford Four, the police didn't want to hear it). After Giuseppe's premature death from ill health exacerbated by prison, Gerry embarks on a quest to prove himself innocent after he is urged on by an idealistic attorney (Thompson), leading to a magnificent conclusion.


Tropes used in In the Name of the Father include:
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