John Boorman's career-long fascination with ambivalent or ambiguous protagonists reaches an apogee in the veritable antihero of The General, a character closely modelled on real-life Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, who in the 1980s managed to run afoul not just of the law but also the Catholic Church and IRA. Boorman himself had a run-in with Cahill, who burgled the director’s house, stealing the gold record for Deliverance’s “Duelling Banjos.” In marked contrast to the large-scale canvases of Hope and Glory or The Emerald Forest, The General’s sober black-and-white cinematography marked a return to the simplicity of Boorman's early BBC documentaries and the unadorned force of Point Blank. (Grainne HUMPHREYS)