Borstal Boy

In 1939 the sixteen-year-old Brendan Behan travels to Liverpool to plant a bomb for the IRA. He is caught at the docks. He is tried and sent to a borstal, a reformatory in the east of England. Inside there are other young offenders like him, and to most of them he is a man from the enemy side. Over time, though, and particularly through his closeness to a boy called Charlie, what Behan knows about the English and about himself begins to change. Peter Sheridan adapted the film from Brendan Behan's memoir of the same name; Behan went on to become one of Ireland's best-known writers. Shawn Hatosy plays Behan and Danny Dyer plays Charlie. The film is about how enmity is learned and how it is put down.