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Shergar
USA/UK 1998
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
County Kildare, Ireland, 8 February 1983. The famous racehorse Shergar is stolen by an IRA faction led by Gavin O'Rourke and hidden on the farm of a Republican sympathiser, Garritty. While the kidnappers issue a $5m ransom demand, Garritty entrusts Shergar to his stable lad, Kevin Doherty. Kevin bonds closely with the horse. The authorities persuade Shergar's owner not to pay the ransom, and O'Rourke orders the horse to be killed. Learning this, Kevin takes off on Shergar. The terrorists pursue him, taking Garritty with them.
Kevin disguises the horse with black dye. Evading his pursuers, he falls in with Joe Maguire, a horse trainer, and his granddaughter Kate. They invite him to accompany them to Cork; he keeps Shergar's identity secret. When O'Rourke, en route to Derry, is shot dead by the SAS, his lieutenant Concannon continues the pursuit.
At Milltown Races, Kevin rides Joe's mare Baytown Lady to victory. Spotted by the kidnappers, he escapes on Shergar, and Kate sees off Concannon with a pitchfork. Rain washes off Shergar's dye. The pursuers close in, trapping Kevin and Shergar on a clifftop. Kevin rides Shergar into the sea. After the terrorists have left, Kate finds Kevin floating in the sea and revives him. Shergar appears standing high on the cliff. Later his foal is born to Baytown Lady.
Review
The disappearance in 1983 of Shergar, widely considered the greatest racehorse of the century, aroused powerful emotions. Kidnapped and almost certainly killed by the Provisional IRA, the horse was subsequently the object of almost as many posthumous sightings as Elvis. Former director of photography Denis C. Lewiston's film, very much a personal labour of love, is an elaborately worked-out version of one of these wish-fulfilment fantasies.
As film subjects, horses and Ireland both carry a strong risk of sentimentality and the two together - as director Mike Newell showed in Into the West - can be fatal. Lewiston's film, which often traverses similar territory to Newell's, is likewise heavy on lyrical long shots of lone riders galloping across Irish hillsides, their banal message of freedom further underlined by John Scott's lush score swelling on the soundtrack. The film's whimsy content is further upped by the arrival of Ian Holm's pixie-ish, philosophical old tinker, rambling through the woods declaiming Yeats. That he turns out to be a learned dropout from Trinity College Dublin and lives in a horse-drawn caravan will scarcely come as a surprise.
There's something almost endearing, though, about the film's eager embrace of every available narrative cliché. Stable lad Kevin's abduction of the horse, as the execution squad approaches, takes place in a rampaging thunderstorm; later on, he and the winsome Kate lie chastely side by side outdoors at night, gazing up at the stars. (His constellation, she tells him, is Pegasus.) Having inherited jockey skills from his absentee father, Kevin triumphantly wins his first-ever horse race. All else pales, though, beside the climax, which dares to undercut a Thelma & Louise-style death leap over the cliff with the most mawkishly implausible of happy endings. Kevin's drowned body, recovered from the sea, spontaneously regains life, while from the cliff top above Shergar (or his spirit?) gazes down benevolently on the birth of his foal, looking for all the world like Bambi's dad.
Holm apart, none of the film's name stars are given much to do. Mickey Rourke as the IRA chief O'Rourke growls menacingly into a telephone a few times before being gunned down. David Warner, unwontedly subdued, seems to be shaping into a promisingly ambivalent character as Republican sympathiser Garritty, but after the first half-hour he's reduced to being dragged in and out of cars looking increasingly disgruntled. Most of the dramatic weight falls on Tom Walsh, appealing but bland as Kevin. Shergar's lack of pretension and evident devotion to its subject make it hard to dislike, but myth-making needs a wilder imagination, and a far greater readiness to confront the dark side, than anything on offer here.
Credits
- Director
- Denis C. Lewiston
- Producers
- Brian Agnew
- Jeff Geoffray
- Walter Josten
- Screenplay
- Denis C. Lewiston
- Director of Photography
- David Lewis
- Editor
- Alan Strachan
- Production Designer
- Brian Ackland-Snow
- Music/Music Conductor
- John Scott
- ©Shergar Financing Inc.
- Production Companies
- Blue Rider Pictures presents a Morlaw Films production in association with The Isle of Man Film Commission
- Executive Producer
- Brian Agnew
- Line Producer
- Ray Freeborn
- Associate Producers
- Craig Nicholls
- James Agnew
- Production Supervisor
- LA Production Staff:
- Jo Ann May-Pavey
- Production Co-ordinator
- Joyce Turner
- Location Manager
- Clive Miles
- Post-production Supervisor
- UK Post-production:
- Pat Harding
- Additional Post-production Services
- Dennis Carrigan
- Shepperton Studios
- Creative Consultant
- LA Production Staff:
- Daniel Duncan
- Assistant Directors
- John Watson
- Kate Hazell
- Matthew Penry-Davey
- 2nd Unit:
- Emma Cullen
- Script Supervisor
- Liz West
- Casting
- John Hubbard
- Ros Hubbard
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Michael Frift
- 2nd Unit Steadicam Operators
- Simon Bray
- Dogan Halil
- Digital Effects
- Peerless Camera Co Ltd
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator
- David Harris
- Art Director
- Roger Bowles
- Draughtsperson
- Ted Ambrose
- Costume Designer
- Louise Stjernsward
- Costume Supervisor
- Suzy Freeman
- Chief Make-up Artist
- Jenny Sharpe
- Animal Make-up Artist
- Wendy Rawson
- Hair Designer
- Linda Catlin
- Titles/Opticals
- Peerless Camera Co Ltd
- Sound Recordists
- Brian Simmons
- 2nd Unit:
- Malcolm Davies
- Re-recording Mixer
- Alan Snelling
- Supervising Sound Editor
- UK Post-production:
- Alan Paley
- Dialogue Editor
- UK Post-production:
- Joe Gallagher
- Sound Engineer
- King William's College:
- Charles Guard
- Additional Dialogue
- Rudyard Burley
- Corinne Martin
- Pierce Quigley
- Matthew Dunster
- Kedysha Sassi
- Juliet Howland
- Rory Murray
- Daniel Hart
- Dominic McHale
- Armourer
- Bapty & Co.
- Animal Co-ordinator
- Sally Jagger
- Cast
- Ian Holm
- Joseph Maguire
- David Warner
- Garritty
- Mickey Rourke
- Gavin O'Rourke
- Andrew Connolly
- Concannon
- Laura Murphy
- Kate
- Tom Walsh
- Kevin Doherty
- Alan Barker
- Elliott Smyth
- Billy Boyle
- Carrigan
- Stephan Brennan
- Mr Faloon
- Gary Cady
- S.A.S. Captain Kirkpatrick
- Denny Cain
- shop owner
- Virginia Cole
- Mrs Garritty
- Timothy Davies
- Raymond Rendow
- Peter Dix
- pharmacist
- Andrew Dixon
- Chief Inspector Penfold
- Phelim Drew
- Donovan
- Dave Duffy
- Sergeant Mullins
- Julian Fellowes
- Chambers
- Gail Fitzpatrick
- female reporter
- Maria Hayden
- Mrs Faloon
- George Jackos
- Rhaban
- Miriam Kane
- W.P.C.
- Jimmy Keogh
- Father Doyle
- Thomas Lappin
- P.C. O'Brien
- Gary Lydon
- Detective Sergeant Malen
- Fintan McKeown
- Detective Inspector Deely
- Walter McMonagle
- Fowler
- Conor Mullen
- Hennity
- Eamon Rohan
- O'Halliran
- Paul Ronan
- Lynch
- Graham Simmonds
- James Simmonds
- Sean Sloan
- newscaster
- Gary Stretch
- S.A.S. soldier
- Christopher Whitehouse
- Gallagher
- Peter O'Sullevan
- himself
- Chapel Choir of King William's College
- orphanage choir
- Robin Boyle
- Steve Haworth
- Colin Jerry
- Clive Kneale
- musicians at races
- Certificate
- PG
- Distributor
- Nu Image Distribution
- 8,583 feet
- 95 minutes 22 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe.