Barry Levinson is a very clever director (and writer). He obviously gathered a lot of information and insight on the pressure-cooker known as Northern Ireland. He delights in the borough's eccentricities and predilections. And, he endows his main characters with appropriate peculiarities. The unfolding of events is true to traditions of the region's humor and the indigenous cast know their character well and eat and breathe the area's history.<br /><br />But, we don't! Nor are we ever brought into it. Therefore the entire exercise seems contrived and self-important. It reminds me of being at a spouse's company party and hearing people reference people and projects that you know and understand nothing about -- yet you do not have the option of leaving the party. It is a series of inside jokes -- but we, the American audiences, are stuck on the outside.