The Devil's Own  

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The Devil's Own is a 1997 movie starring Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Rubén Blades, Natascha McElhone, Julia Stiles and Treat Williams. It was the final film directed by Alan J. Pakula.

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Synopsis

In 1972, eight year old Francis Austin McGuire lives in Northern Ireland with his father, mother and sister. One night, his father, a Republican sympathizer, is gunned down by a masked Loyalist gunman at the dinner table. 20 years later in September 1992, Frankie (Brad Pitt), now a grown man, has become a member of the Provisional IRA. In Belfast, Frankie and his team get caught up in a battle against British soldiers pursing Frankie. After a tense gun fight in the street, Frankie escapes. British agent Harry Sloan (Simon Jones) kills Frankie's colleague after he refuses to tell Sloan where Frankie is.

Frankie escapes to a safe house in the countryside where he meets up with Martin MacDuf. MacDuf tells him that the IRA are in need of surface-to-air missiles. Five months later in February 1993, Frankie travels to New York City, using a false passport under the name 'Rory Devaney'. He meets Peter Fitzsimmons, a New York court judge who is supportive of the IRA's cause. Fitzsimmons drives Rory to the home of Tom O'Meara (Harrison Ford), a New York City cop. Rory meets Tom and his family and is unwittingly welcomed. Fitzsimmons also provides with a bag of millions of dollars in cash.

The next day, Rory meets up with his friend Sean Phelan, another IRA gunman. The two begin work on a boat which will take them back to Ireland with the weapons. Rory meets with Billy Burke (Treat Williams), a black market dealer who agrees to provide Frankie with the missiles.

Later, Rory meets Megan Doherty (Natascha McElhone), Fitzsimmons's daughter who becomes attracted to Frankie and agrees to help him with his mission. After a celebration for one of Tom's daughters, Rory is informed that Martin has been killed and that the deal with Burke has to be put on hold for a little longer than expected.

Tom is also having problems. One morning when he and his partner Eddie Diaz, see a thief stealing car radios, the two surround the suspect and pursue him down the street. When the crook throws his gun down some stairs, Tom goes to collect the gun but Eddie chases the crook into an alley way where he shoots him in the back. At the police station, Tom covers up for Eddie saying that the crook had a gun at the time Eddie shot him. Tom decides to retire from active duty as he cannot do his job with the guilt of lying to his superiors.

When Tom and his wife arrive home early one afternoon, they find two masked men in their house. Tom fights both of them while his wife (Shelia) phones the police. The two are saved by Rory who beats the two men just as a third masked man comes in and holds Shelia at gunpoint. They leave just before the police arrive at the house and Rory checks that his bag of money is still in its hiding place. He visits Burke, who suggests that Rory talks to Sean about the exchange and takes Rory to an alley where Burke has beaten and gagged Sean in the back of his car. Burke tells Rory to get the money to him by that evening, or he'll kill Sean.

Rory returns to the O'Meara's house. When he gets down to the basement he is challenged by Tom, who had been looking through Rory's room and found the money. Tom demands to know what it is for, Rory explains to Tom why he is doing what he's doing, but Tom refuses to let him go. Tom and Eddie arrest Rory and drive to the police station. When they run into a obstacle, Eddie gets out to make the truck driver move, in the meantime Rory manages to knock Tom unconscious and escapes. He kills Eddie when he draws his gun, but fails to retrieve the money from the car trunk.

At the morgue, Tom is questioned by the FBI and Harry Sloan about his association with Rory, where he learns Rory's true identity. Tom then goes on his own vendetta to find Frankie before the FBI and the British SAS can. Frankie meets Burke and his men in a warehouse that night. Burke reveals that he has killed Sean and Frankie gives the men a bag with a bomb inside, which triggers when opened. He kills Burke and his men, then drives the missiles to Megan's home. He asks her for help, asking her to tell their contacts in Ireland that he is returning. She agrees and just before she can carry this out, Tom turns up and chases her upstairs but Frankie escapes. Having no choice, Megan tells Tom where Frankie is going and he drives to the docks where Frankie is loading the vessel he and Sean fixed up with the missiles. Just as Frankie sets off from the pier, Tom jumps on board and the two have a exchange of gunfire, in which Tom gets shot in the shoulder. Frankie emerges and holds Tom at gunpoint, but is wounded in the chest and dies. The film ends as Tom sails the boat back to shore in the morning sunrise above New York.

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Cast

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Filming

The Devil's Own was filmed in Greenport NY (Long Island) as well as Montclair, New Jersey. The opening scenes were filmed at Port Oriel, Clogherhead, County Louth, Republic of Ireland. The Belfast shootout scenes were filmed in Inchicore, Dublin in July 1996. Other location shoots in Ireland were in the Dublin Mountains.


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Devil's Own" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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