Incendiary.

I'm sure that all film lovers have done it, read the premise of a movie, thought it would make a great film and have been disappointed with the outcome. One such movie is Sharon Maguire’s so called 'explosive thriller' Incendiary (2008).  The story involves a terrorist attack on a North London Premiership Football Club Stadium where six suicide bombers join 60000 football fans on Saturday afternoon and set off their deadly cargo whilst sitting amongst the crowd resulting in the horrific death of over 1000 men, women and children. The story centres on a young married woman (Michelle Williams) whose husband Lenny (Nicholas Gleaves), a bomb disposal officer of all things, and their young son (Sidney Johnston) are among the victims. While Lenny and the boy are at the match she is having sex with a rich young yuppie (Ewan McGregor) who she picked up in a pub and who lives in an expensive Georgian terrace house opposite the high-rise block where the family lived. Does she suffer with her immoral guilt? I think we can safely say she does not and that her scruples and her loyalty to her dead family are put further under the spotlight when she starts to have an affair with her dead husbands boss (Matthew Macfadyen) who is in charge of the anti terrorist squad who are investigating the explosions.

Sharon Maguire also wrote the film script, which in turn was based on a novel written by Chris Cleave who was inspired by the Milan bombings in 2002. So I bet you agree that the narrative does sound promising? And yes the movie has its good points one being the popular American born actress Michelle Williams whose mastery of a North London accent really needs hearing to be believed and she does make a reasonable job of portraying the promiscuous young married woman. Also Sidney Johnson the young lad, in his feature film debut, that play’s William's son is excellent but...

 

Michelle Williams is the best thing about this disappointing film. 

Yes there is a very large but - mainly with the fact that what should be a gripping and exciting movie - isn't! Matthew Macfadyen is miss cast; it bypasses realism and is made unbelievable by a dull script and large plot holes. What could have been a chance to make a political statement has been completely wasted because of the weak story line. Completely emotionless with a silly spoken narrative where Williams writes a spoken letter to Osama bin Laden over the movies running time. It's a piece of work from the Bridget Jones director that I can't take seriously, a project that is a missed opportunity to make a hard hitting movie on a subject that’s never out of the headlines of the world press.