Nominated for the 2010 Palme d’Or. ‘Route Irish’ is a fast-paced conspiracy thriller that delivers a fresh insight into the moral and political corruption at play in Iraq. As well as exploring the abuses perpetrated by private security firms on the ground in Iraq, Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty examine the effects of combat on security contractors - the new ‘soldiers’ of modern warfare - who witness the horrors of combat and are subject to post-combat stress yet receive no support from the state upon return home. Fergus returns to his native Liverpool for the funeral of his childhood friend Frankie, a fellow private security contractor who has been killed on Route Irish, the deadly and now infamous stretch of road between Baghdad airport and the Green Zone. Refusing to accept the official account of his best friend’s death, Fergus launches his own investigation, fuelled by the discovery of a cell phone on which Frankie had recorded the shooting of an innocent Iraqi family just days before his own death. As his investigation ramps up - via frequent Skype conversations with former security colleagues in Iraq and his interrogation of security firm officials in the UK - Fergus soon draws the heat of those he is investigating and a once dirty foreign war is transferred to the streets of Liverpool and pursued on home turf.
