80
Narratives of the Northern Irish Troubles are a nightmare of bias and bullshit – this superior doc does better than most in cutting through both, and offers a lot to experts and noobs alike.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Though it is clearly a work of great empathy and respect, Bobby Sands: 66 Days takes pains to offer alternative perspectives and as such makes for a richly textured and complex portrait of man, myth and movement.
80
This finely crafted docu may well long stand as the most balanced among such treatments, as it respectfully examines Sands’ folk-heroic legacy rather than simply amplifying it.
80
Informed, balanced and deeply humane.
75
Slant Magazine by Kenji Fujishima
Brendan J. Byrne's documentary about Bobby Sands colors its familiar formal lines with welcome intelligence.
83
The emotional reserve of 66 Days can make the film feel a little dry at times, given that it’s about something as visceral as a man starving himself to death. But Byrne does a fine job of juggling a lot of information.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Sands is still an opaque figure by the end of this film. We have his sombre writings and journals but, interestingly, there are hardly any clear photographs, and we learn little about him as a human being.
80
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
Byrne’s film is concerned with the process and practice of myth-making: the way the right person, or action, or face, can capture a moment, or galvanise a movement – and, for both good and ill, transform politics into something like art.
70
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Mr. Byrne’s film is a sober, evenhanded recapitulation of Sands’s imprisonment and death that places him in a historical context.
80
Time Out London by Tom Huddleston
It’s in contextualising Sands’s struggle that ‘66 Days’ is most effective.