Route Irish

ROUTE IRISH is the latest hard-hitting film by British filmmaker Ken Loach. It's a tense thriller that explores the wartime thuggery that begets more violence. Route Irish is the most dangerous highway in the world. It connects the Green Zone – the fortress-like government, military, and diplomatic quarter at the heart of Baghdad – with the Baghdad International Airport and the U.S. military headquarters. This highway, the only way in and out, is a shooting gallery for terrorists. Frankie and Fergus are life-long friends from the Liverpool harbor. Fergus has convinced Frankie to go to Iraq and to make big money working for a security contractor. (Fergus's tour there is up and he's back in Liverpool.) Then the unthinkable happens – Frankie is killed along Route Irish. An Iraqi mobile phone turns up with Frankie's last moments recorded on it, and the authorities' accounts of his death don't add up. Beside himself with grief and rage, Fergus resolves to find out who really killed his mate. He goes through hell while uprooting the evil that grows like cancer in times of war. – B.B.