I haven't seen it in years - just ordered a copy on DVD. It was a challenging film in that the spiralling out of the violence didn't really have the script to merit it in some ways. But it still holds a very strange and compelling grip from the start and the film does shine a light on the place-men and stooges which were such a massive part of the low-intensity-operation/ manipulation tit-for-tat assassination game and bandit-turf-war which Northern Ireland became.

I first saw "Angel" at a special screening at a film society at The New University of Ulster around 1984. Much of the manipulation of Rea's actions went right past me at the time (I was too young and inexperienced to understand what was actually happening in Ulster at the time, I was trapped in the "two sides" nonsense). It really took until the Gibraltor Killings and watching the Spiralling Multi-Funerals Assassination Aftermath Principle playing out to be able to start understand something of what was going on. Maybe those two armed troopers who were sent into that funeral were told they were gonna be rescued... but hey they were just collateral damage...

The idea of "alliances", "pacts","croney-ism", "bungs", "influence" and "special treatment" for one side in the GFA (and not the other) can only be a prelude to a return to the "influence" which was at the heart of nearly thirty years of Murder and Mayhem.

Remember Hillsborough. Remember Bloody Sunday. Remember how long it took to get to the truth and the massive damage done. That was croney-ism, pacts, mutual back-coverage and pervasive Police, Army and Government influence. It is that... not the DUP (bless their cotton Non-Evolution-Believing socks) or Sinn Fein we have to fear.