Off Screen

ANYONE HOPING to learn about the Irish troubles from the cinema would probably conclude that Sinn Fein and the IRA had better declare a cease-fire quickly, before they do themselves some serious damage. In Patriot Games a crack unit of Republican terrorists had their assassination attempt on an English Royal foiled by a passing American tourist. In The Crying Game, an IRA man became so depressed after his confrontation with an American who sounded like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins that he gave up the struggle for life with an English transsexual. And in In The Name Of The Father, a hardened IRA prisoner struck at the British establishment by attacking the projectionist during a film show.

Now in Blown Away, a renegade IRA terrorist assaults the city of Boston with a series of elaborate bombs made out of children’s toys and old clocks and bits of left over electronics that cause the bomb disposal man to dash about like the bejaysus trying to stop little balls rolling down chutes and starting up little train sets to travel around a room and knock over some skittles before setting off an almighty explosion. It’s kind of a Heath Robinson approach to bomb-making: not very efficient but at least it looks like fun.

Meanwhile, the actual IRA blew up the somewhat less glamorous target of Bognor with a couple of bicycles. How on earth do they expect to be taken seriously by mounting a cycle attack on an English seaside resort? This is like Carry On Bombing. What did they do, ring up a courier company and ask them to make a delivery to the mainland?

“But we’re cycle couriers!”

“Ah, sure there’s no hurry.”

If this catches on, the Belfast ferry is going to start looking like the Tour De France, with thousands of young men in bicycle shorts and anti-pollution masks peddling off with little packages to deliver around the country. They’re probably all having a good chortle back in the IRA high command at the thought of concerned citizens all over Britain ringing up the police to report a suspicious bicycle leaning against the lamp-post outside. Kids are going to be coming out of the sweet shop to find the bomb squad ripping open their inner tube.

None of this, of course, is a laughing matter to me, since I cycle around London all the time. As if lung-choking pollution and hostile drivers weren’t enough to deal with, I now fully expect to be stopped at any time by armed policemen demanding to inspect the suspicious bulge in my lycra shorts, halting the traffic and screaming down megaphones: “Stand back everybody, it looks like it could blow any minute!”

This is not as far fetched as you might think. Armed police are becoming an increasingly common sight on the streets of London. The other day I wandered out of my flat in a sleepy suburb to see six policemen in bullet-proof vests, with Heckler and Koch automatic rifles drawn, slowly surrounding a van that had been parked on the corner all night. They looked as if they expected a gang of rabid terrorists to throw open the doors at any moment and start screaming, “You’ll never take us alive!” but when they eventually did open the back of the van, all they found were hundreds of boxes of tampons, apparently stolen and abandoned the day before. The police looked oddly disappointed, but not half as disappointed, I imagine, as the thieves, who I must assume were all male.

Now if the IRA found a way to insert explosive devices in a Tampax, they could really bring the country to its knees.

Of course, the Arabs get it even worse. If you see anyone with olive skin and a beard in a movie these days, it’s odd on they’re playing a bumbling Islamic terrorist, from some vague but unidentified middle eastern state. Moslems have been picketing True Lies in America, apparently upset that not only are they depicted as the bad guys once again, but even though they are well enough organised to smuggle four nuclear warheads into America, they forget to load batteries into the video camera taping used to tape their ransom demands and generally behave like they learned all their skills at a training camp run by the Three Stooges.

What nobody seems to have picked up on is that, judging by the cast names, most of the actors playing Islamic terrorists are actually Jewish, which is a bit like getting a cast of ex-policemen from the British midlands to put on a production of The Plough And The Stars.

Director James Cameron has defended his film, saying that people were taking it too seriously, and that movies needed bad guys and the bad guys had to come from somewhere. “It could just as well have been the Irish,” he added, displaying the same kind of political sensitivity that got Salman Rushdie where he is today. Well, it’s encouraging to know that, when you need a movie villain these days, it’s between us, the Arabs and maybe the odd Colombian.

Of course, in reality the IRA wouldn’t know what to do with a nuclear warhead. There’s nowhere to fit it onto a bicycle.