In the Name of the Father: Film Summary and Analysis

Gerry Conlon is a small time thief in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After several run meetings with the IRA, Gerry is sent to London to live with his aunt, Anne Maguire, because his father, Giuseppe, is concerned for his safety. At the ferry, he meets an old friend Paul Hill and agrees to meet some old friends in London. Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong and Carole Richardson live as free hippies. After awhile Gerry and Paul got kicked out of the hippie shack they were living in. After spending the night on a park bench, where they met another Irishman named Charlie Burke, Gerry and Paul saw a prostitute drop her keys to her apartment and Gerry decide to rob her for money. After the robbery they bought the same clothes. After that Gerry departs and returns to Belfast to his family. What they didn’t know was that while they were during the robbery, the Guildford pub is blown up by the IRA, and it killed four soldiers and a civilian.

The night after Gerry’s return, the police break’s in to Gerry and his family’s house. The police arrested and brought Gerry back to England for questioning where he was and what he was during that night the Guildford pub was bombed. Trough tough interrogation and psychological torture the police try to force him to confess to have taken part in the bombing and to admit to the murder of the five that had been killed. Meanwhile all this, Giuseppe Conlon comes to London to help his son. But without any reason the police arrest him, his sister-in-law Anne Maguire, her two sons, her Brother Sean Smyth and a family friend, because they think the family is supplying the IRA with nitro-glycerine. Conlon is still being tortured until Paul Hill enter the room and admit taken part in the bombs, and he says that he want Conlon to do the same. Gerry refuses until; he is threatened with the life of his father. To protect his father he makes a confession. Hill only confessed because the police stuck a gun in his mouth.