''Detainment'' is a 2018 Irish short

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Vincent Lambe Vincent Joseph Lambe (born 1 December 1980) is an Irish film director, screenwriter and producer. Lambe received acclaim for directing the 2018 short film ''Detainment'', which is about the murder of James Bulger. The film earned him a 2019 Acad ...

, about the

murder of James Bulger On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, England, two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted, tortured, and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990 – 12 February 1993). Thompson and Venables led Bulger ...

. It was nominated for the

Best Live Action Short Film The Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is an award presented at the annual Academy Awards ceremony. The award has existed, under numerous names, since 1957. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate awards, ''Best Short Subject, On ...

at the

91st Academy Awards The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best 2018 in film, films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During th ...

Plot

A re-enactment partially altered for dramatic purposes of the real-life event of what happened to James Bulger shows 10-year-old boys Jon Venables and Robert Thompson each asked questions in different Liverpool police stations about what happened to James. They constantly blame each other, and flashbacks are shown of their time together with James. Eventually, they are found guilty of murdering James, and both boys are arrested offscreen.

Cast

* Ely Solan as Jon Venables * Leon Hughes as Robert Thompson * Caleb Mason as James Bulger * Will O'Connell as Detective Dale * David Ryan as Detective Scott * Tara Breathnach as Susan Venables (Jon Venables’ mother) * Killian Sheridan as Neil Venables (Jon Venables’ father) * Kathy Monahan as Ann Thompson (Robert Thompson’s mother) * Morgan C. Jones as Detective Roberts * Martin Phillips as Laurence Lee (Jon Venables’ solicitor) * Tom Pigot as Dominic Lloyd (Robert Thompson’s solicitor) * Alan Buckley as Robert Thompson’s social worker * Brian Fortune as Detective Jacobs

Reception

The film has approval rating from critics on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on reviews, and an average rating of . Malcolm Stevens, who oversaw the detention of the killers as the former

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...

's professional adviser, defended the making of the film in an editorial, saying that it raised questions regarding the treatment of young offenders which he felt "successive governments have striven to avoid". In January 2019, it was nominated for the

at the

. Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger, stated that she was "disgusted and upset" by the film and its subsequent nomination because the film was made without contacting her family. She had previously circulated a petition to have it removed from Oscar consideration, which drew more than 227,000 signatures by 29 January 2019, and wrote to the film's director Vincent Lambe to withdraw it from the Oscars. Lambe said that he would not be doing so, saying "It's like saying we should burn every copy of it. I think it would defeat the purpose of making the film."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Detainment 2018 drama films 2018 films 2018 short films 2010s British films 2010s English-language films 2010s historical drama films British drama short films British historical drama films Drama films based on actual events Films about child death Films about murderers Films set in 1993 Irish drama short films Irish historical drama films Obscenity controversies in film English-language historical drama films English-language drama short films 2010s Irish films