Deliberately evoking documentary style has mixed blessings. When the subject is serious and utilises the ‘based on a true story’ catch-all, it behoves a director to know what he’s talking about. A point not lost on Peter Travis whose film covers a 1998 bombing in Northern Ireland. It was during the height of sensitive negotiations for the Good Friday peace accord when the ‘Real’ IRA killed 29 people and injured hundreds more. Gerard McSorley (Veronica Guerin’s villain) is the reluctant hero who fights for retribution after his son is killed. He leads a group of victim’s families who simply want the perpetrators made accountable.

The tiny budget has not compromised this made-for-TV production which transfers to cinema effortlessly. Languid shots capture the grim reality of a deeply painful event. The vérité-style is shaky, confronting, almost nauseating, and thoroughly appropriate. Scenes in which a car packed with explosives, parked to maximise casualties, is anxious and unnerving. Travis uses unfamiliar actors to enhance the ordinariness of his character’s lives. And this is a very ordinary group of people – mechanics, shopkeepers, wives, husbands, daughters – living ordinary lives. That’s until they’re caught in a web of violence then one of indifference as the political and justice process fails them.

Notwithstanding the timeliness of the subject matter, Omagh is a deliberate and provocative work that resonates with compassion, strength and above all, truth. McSorley has the only rounded character, one that blossoms from grieving father (“I am not a good public speaker”) to an urgent leader. Deftly written by Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday), the story of Omagh is now a universal one. It’s the story of Bali, London, Baghdad. One in which innocent lives are squandered for the sake of querulous peace.

// COLIN FRASER