Too much of everything

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

'Hunger' is a British-Irish Historical Drama about the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. It's a film that's tough to watch, showing prison brutality and conditions at its most absolute rawest, and it visually looks the part (age and grime and all). Being fact-based certainly lends emotions to events depicted which would be absent if it were a fictional account, but the direction here is forgettable. Too many meandering scenes of banal activities waste precious time in a picture that wouldn't make it past the hour mark had liberties not been taken on scene lengths where the camera lingers on something uninteresting for too long. We even get a man sweeping liquid down a corridor for a couple of minutes, when you get the point after 10 seconds. It serves little purpose, and the static camera-work is detriment to the cause. Steve McQueen would repeat this dull filmmaking style with 12 Years a Slave many years later. One impressive scene is when Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham share time together, giving us a 17 minute unbroken shot of a conversation. But that's not down to direction or cinematography, but to the credit of the actors for memorising their lines. Speaking of Fassbender, he undergoes a shocking physical transformation (clue is in the title), displaying his commitment to accurately portray and tell the story of the character. That dedication to his performance in what is really an independent piece of work is commendable, showing early on his potential as a leading man.I'm not trying to undermine the story that is the heart and core of this film, I just believe it could have been filmed much better with less tedium to keep me invested. And for that I give it 6/10.

Never have I had to turn away my eyes from a movie screen until watching Michael Fassbender deliver this Daniel Day Lewis performance and putting his own body thru a grotesque transformation. I knew he was a great actor but not till seeing him in Hunger did I see the complete commitment to character. Being an ignorant American, I know almost nothing about what happened during these tumultuous times except for what I have read myself now older (thanks school system) Watch this and think about all the men and women used as commodities in our own prison systems. I cannot compare this to In The Name Of The Father, Papilon or Midnight Express, this stands on its own. I am going to watch everything director Steven McQueen has done now. Hope the review helps.

There are these moments of extreme brutality and of booming silence. The film feels like a perfect composition of nearly scientifically observation. Historical Information are gentle prepared in the story that there is no didactic moment. The film mentions to the empathy of all human beings, showing us colleagues, families, lovers and parents, this goes beyond understanding to reach pure feeling. The perfectly soundtrack and main theme is an impulsive understatement and also in perfect harmony as an piece of art itself; the soundtrack is not illustrating the pictures, it adds a rhythm, a way of interpret the Narration.

great acting from Fassbender , very realistic shot movie with a lot of violence and brutality . the Dialoge between Bobby and the priest was the best part in the movie , loved it and the whole hunger strike part was just painful to watch ( in a good way ) . i still think movie had a lot of scenes that were used for no reason , seen with the guard or the guy trying to play with the fly or the guy cleaning the walls, i understand that those scenes were helping to make realistic look and atmosphere but still did not work for me at least...... 1 thing that movie was lacking was emotions , movie felt a little flat . maybe director made it so it will look more artistic which it definitely did .