The Wind That Shakes the Barley turns out to be a more complicated, more dramatically potent story than it appears at first. It's concerned at its core not with how bad the British were but with what the cost of dealing with them was for the Irish.Read Full Review »
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The New York Times: A.O. Scott
The history presented in The Wind That Shakes the Barley hardly feels like a closed book or a museum display. It is as alive and as troubling as anything on the evening news, though far more thoughtful and beautiful.Read Full Review »
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NewsWeek: David Ansen
Loach hurls us into the fracas, circa 1920, and creates such a vivid sense of the nuts and bolts of guerilla war you almost forget you are watching a period piece. Unlike the epic sweep of Neil Jordan's "Billy Collins," which spoke in a syntax closer to Hollywood's, "The Wind" doesn't paint over its political arguments with a patina of nostalgia.Read Full Review »
Director Ken Loach is full of astonishments. An avowedly leftist filmmaker, he has always seen beyond political cant to compassionate reality. He's also incredibly sensitive to what might be called the nuances of life, and he always brings a high sense of spontaneous reality to his films.Read Full Review »
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Village Voice: Scott Foundas
Like Jean-Pierre Melville's recently rediscovered "Army of Shadows," The Wind That Shakes the Barley possesses the soul of an anti-war movie and the style of a thriller.Read Full Review »
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Boston Globe: Wesley Morris
The historical scope of this story, as well as Loach's interest in absolute fairness, seems to have drained some of the life from its telling.Read Full Review »
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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Owen Gleiberman
If Loach had given full voice to each side of this division, he could have made a great film -- maybe THE great film -- about the Irish struggle.Read Full Review »
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