David Behrens previews the Belfast-based film, Resurrection Man.

In 1975, fearsome though they were, the terrorists of west Belfast were not, apparently, the most dangerous aspect to life in the city.

The 'conventional' criminal fraternity, driven by a self-appointed and fatuous desire to serve Queen and country, was made up of people you would not wish to encounter in a crowded supermarket, let alone a dark alley.

These people were the Shankhill Butchers and their like, habitus of a dark, ungodly quarter of a city where life and death were interchangeable and where one more act of violence scarcely registered a paragraph in the local paper.

The real and frightening criminality of the period is the inspiration, if that's the right word, for Eoin McNamee's fictionalised screenplay, which opens today with an armour-plated 18 certificate.

McNamee's anti-hero is Victor Kelly, a Belfast street dweller who wishes to buck the media's trend towards indifference by making a name for himself in print as well as in blood. He and his acolytes embark upon a spree of gruesome, random killings, gaining a prized notoriety within both the criminal and journalistic fraternities.

It is the ritualistic way in which Kelly disposes of his victims which attracts the interest of an ambitious reporter called Ryan (James Nesbitt). He suspects that there's more than sheer, unbridled criminality to Kelly's butchery; while Kelly himself, spurred on by such perceived acclaim, seeks ever greater kicks.

As portrayed by Stuart Townsend (from Shooting Fish), Kelly is alternately charming and maniacal. There is nothing at all charming, however, about the level of violence in which the director Marc Evans finds it necessary to wallow.

Kelly is supported, indeed manipulated, by Sean McGinley as a shadowy Belfast underworld figure called Sammy McClure. John Hannah from TV's McCallum, is a rival gangster called Darkie Larche.

Performers are not really the issue, though. Resurrection Man is uncompromising in its depiction of a world which most of us would probably rather not see represented at all. It is entertainment for the iron-stomached only, and uncomfortable entertainment at that.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.