Watch Hunger (2008) Online

Plot

The film stars Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla who led the 1981 Irish hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest (led by Brendan "The Dark" Hughes) in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatises events in the Maze prison in the six weeks prior to Sands’ death.

The film opens with prison guard, Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) preparing to leave for work; checking under his car for bombs, putting on his uniform in the locker room and ignoring the camaraderie of his colleagues. We then see short clips of Lohan at various points throughout the day and notice his knuckles are bloodied and cut.

Davey (Brian Milligan), a new IRA prisoner arrives at the prison and, following his refusal to wear the prison uniform, he is labelled a "non-conforming prisoner" and made to strip naked, and given only a blanket. He arrives at his cell where his new roommate, Gerry (Liam McMahon), has smeared the walls with faeces from floor to ceiling. The two men get to know each other and we see them living out their lives, including a visit by family members where we see Bobby Sands speak with his parents and one man's girlfriend sneaks a radio in by wrapping it and keeping it in her vagina.

We then see the guards, who are exceptionally brutal, forcibly removing the prisoners from their cells and beating them before finally pinning them down and using scissors to cut their long hair and beards, grown as part of their no wash protest. Sands fights back and as he's being brought into the room he punches Lohan, who punches him back and then swings again, only to miss and punch the wall, causing his knuckles to bleed. He cuts Sands' hair and beard, the men throw him in the bath tub and scrub him clean before hauling him away again. Lohan is then seen having a smoke, like in the opening scenes, his hand bloodied.

Shortly after this we see a large number of riot police coming into the prison on a truck. They line up and beat their batons against their shields and scream to scare the prisoners, who are then hauled from their cells, beaten heavily, then thrown in between the lines of riot police where they are beaten with the batons by at least 10 men and then hauled before Lohan and several of his colleagues; one of whom using the same pair of latex gloves for every man and every task, probes first their anus and then their mouths. One man manages to head-butt a guard and is promptly beaten without mercy by a police officer with severe brutality.

The next scene shows Lohan entering a retirement home where he sits with his catatonic mother, and brings her daisies. He is promptly shot in the neck by an IRA assassin and dies slumped onto his mother's lap, with her sitting motionless not knowing what happened.

Sands is then shown meeting his Priest and discussing the morality of a hunger strike. This meeting is lengthy and contains important dialogue regarding why Sands chose to do what he did and how strongly he believed in his cause. The rest of the film shows Sands well into his hunger strike, with bleeding sores all over his body, kidney failure, low blood pressure, stomach ulcers, and the inability to stand on his own by the end. Emotionally powerful, the film spares no detail in Sands' condition and suffering, as we see him get worse and continue to refuse food. In the last days, while Sands lies in a bath, a larger orderly comes in to give his usual orderly a break. The larger orderly sits next to the tub and shows Sands his knuckles, which are tattooed with the letters "UDA", for Ulster Defence Association. Sands tries to stand on his own and eventually does so with all his strength, staring defiantly at the UDA orderly who refused to help him up, but then he crumbles in a heap on the floor with no strength left to stand. The orderly carries him to his room.

Sands' parents arrive and stay there for the final days, and his mother is at his side when Sands finally loses his life.

The film explains that Sands had been elected an MP in the British Parliament while he was on strike and that 9 men died on the hunger strike, which caused the British government to cave in to the demands of prisoner rights in spite of it never actually officially granting political status to the prisoners.

• Official Movie Web Site

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