Genre: Drama/Crime
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer: Mo Buck
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Alfred Molina, Josh Hartnett, Will Poulter, Michael Keaton, Christian Slater, Ralph Fiennes, Peter Capaldi, Bill Pullman, Walton Goggins
Plot: Based on real events
October 5 - British Trade Commissioner in Quebec James Cross (Peter Capaldi) is sitting at home, just mere days after his birthday. He's watching the news. He hears someone knocking at the door and calls for his maid to go open it, but he’ll later wish that she never opened that door. She opens the door and briefly discusses with the gentlemen disturbing them in this quiet autumn night. They identify themselves as two brothers from a delivering company. They came to deliver a birthday package to Cross in person. The maid is happy to let them in and as soon as they meet Cross, they open the box. Instead of an expensive gift, the box contains two assaults rifles that the two brothers use to threaten them. They leave a note to the maid and they get away in their car, with James Richard Cross in the trunk. Paul (Alfred Molina) and Jacques (Josh Hartnett) Rose just became the most wanted men, not only in Quebec, but in the entire country.
October 6 - The police goes to Cross' house and look at the note they left. They demand that the FLQ Manifesto is aired lived on national television. They also ask the release of several FLQ members and money in exchange for Cross. The FLQ, a separatist, Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group in Quebec, strongly against the province attachment to the Canadian government is behind the kidnapping. The police understand that these guys are no joke. It’s the same group who likes to do fake bomb threats in factories and the same group of who likes to put real bombs in mailboxes. They describe themselves as paramilitaries with the intent of protecting the Quebecois identity in a country dominated by anglophones, but what they really are: anarchist, with only one goal in mind, creating a climate of fear and chaos, at least according to the police.
October 8 - The key members of the FLQ are united in their warehouse where Cross is held hostage. The leader, Bernard Lortie (Nicholas Hoult), the Rose brothers and Francis Simard (Will Poulter) are present. They turn on the television and the CBC is airing their separatist manifesto. Their manifesto criticize the Quebec electoral system, the bureaucracy, the “hypocrite” liberal government and the traitor, the Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, a Quebec native, who now works for the real enemy, Canada. They also get a jab at the Catholic Church and the big businesses for good measures. They think their manifesto will rally people behind their cause, but the public opinion isn’t with them, at all. They all cheer and promise to do something else, but to attack the Quebec government this time.
October 10 - Bernard Lortie and Francis Simard are cruising down a street, near Montreal, Quebec. They stop the car in front of a house. Outside, Quebec's Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte (Ralph Fiennes) is playing football with his kid. They put their masks on and kidnap him. The leave a similar note to the kid and drive away to the warehouse, where they put Laporte near Cross. They force Laporte to write a letter from captivity, addressed to the Quebec Prime Minister Robert Bourassa, a letter in which Laporte begs Bourassa to stop the search for him and that he’s well treated by them. Bernard Lortie dictates the letter to Laporte. The latter is surprised to see how much these guys know about his family. He now thinks it’s not just against the institution, it’s personal.
October 11 - The CBC broadcasts Laporte' letter as the FLQ members are all laughing at him, especially after the more personal part. (Letter available with this link: faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/docs/october/laporte1.htm)
October 12 – The Quebec Prime, Robert Bourassa, following the airing of Laporte’ letter, contact the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Michael Keaton) to beg him to act in the situation. After a lengthy phone call, in which Trudeau initially disagrees to help Quebec in the matter, Bourassa is able to convince him a bit and he agrees to send a regiment to guard every federal property in Montreal, to prevent another attack by the FLQ. They learn that the FLQ hired loudmouth lawyer Bob Lemieux (Walton Goggins) to negotiate the release of both Cross and Laporte. Lemieux is bad news, the kind of shady lawyers who never loses and pulls out every dirty tricks in the books to get his clients out of trouble. Trudeau comes to learn that the FLQ manifesto targeted him personally, he’s fuming.
October 13 – The story of the Quebec kidnappings is gaining national recognitionnad every Canadian media outlet is covering the event. Everyone wants the scoop that will make them famous. In front of the Parliament, it’s like a circus, everyone bumping into each other to try to talk to everyone who leaves the building, with the hope of having an exclusive development on their channel. A lucky man, who isn’t even at the Parliament, representing CBC, is able to interview the Prime Minister. A pissed off and exasperate Trudeau gives an infamous interview in which the journalist criticizes his every move. It ends with words that will be remembered forever by the people who lived through these difficult times : Just Watch Me. (Integral interview: )
October 14 - Quebec Prime Minister Robert Bourassa calls respected Quebec lawyer Robert Demers (Bill Pullman) to represent the government's interest in the negotiations with the FLQ. The FLQ members feel that they will soon be discovered, after the Rose brothers noticed more police cars patrolling in Montreal, while listening to the police radio channel. FLQ leader Bernard Lortie agrees with them and along with Francis Simard, they plan a route to move the two hostages. During this time, their lawyer, Bob Lemieux is trying to spread the word to encourage the students to skip school in support of the FLQ, to moderate success. Pierre Laporte and James Cross can now talk to each other and they casually chat about their lives, while worrying if they'll ever get out of here. Laporte thinks this whole thing is personal, but Cross doesn’t agree, because they don’t have anything personal on him, unlike Laporte.
October 15 - FLQ lawyer Bob Lemieux and Quebec lawyer Robert Demers are negotiating terms together at the Parliament, with Robert Bourassa present. The discussion goes nowhere, as Lemieux is stubborn and isn't ready to hear what the government has to say. He leaves the office. After he leaves, Prime Minister Bourassa calls his federal counterpart and ask for his help, once again. Trudeau says he'll think about it, because since he sent the soldiers to protect the important people, nothing happened, so he believes the situation is under control. He doesn’t want to turn this whole crisis into something too big that will only benefit the FLQ, because of the publicity. Bob Lemieux organized a student rally in the streets of Montreal, with 3,000 students present. He makes a speech and declares : "We are going to win because there are more boys ready to shoot members of Parliament than there are policemen." A CBC footage shows the fear of other Canadians, who start to fear that Quebec is starting a revolution, to separate from the country. After Prime Minister Bourassa sees the rally on television, he asks to take over the air and delivers a speech in which he says that he's not negociating with the FLQ anymore (only available in French, sorry).
October 16 - In front of Canada's inaction on the matter, an irritated Robert Bourassa calls Prime Minister Trudeau and after a heated exchange, he agrees to implement the War Measures Act, for the first time in times of peace, which allows the police to arrest and detain anybody at anytime, despite not having significant proof of their guilt and it also implements a strict curfew. Canada will also send more military units in Montreal with the sole purpose of imposing the War Measures Act. CBC footage show tanks and soldiers in the streets of Montreal, with the looks of concern on the citizens' face.
October 17 - The FLQ members are now ready to move. Bernard Lortie and Francis Simard are in charge of moving Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte to an unknown location. The Rose brothers will move James Cross to the same place. They all leave together and go on the highway. They take an exit and drive on rural roads. Lortie and Simard stop when they hear Laporte knocking on the trunk. They stop. While they argue what to do with him, Jacques Rose decides to strangle him, just to scare him. He eventually kills the man. Panicking, they decide to leave the car in the forest and leave on foot, as the Rose brothers didn't stop. The same night, via their lawyer, Quebec is informed of the death of Pierre Laporte. Bourassa is devastated by the news. The FLQ members are watching the news and celebrate together, they view it as a small victory. Bernard Lortie leaves them to go back to the city. He needs to continue to spread the word about the FLQ and he still needs to contact their lawyers, who despite the government’s reticence, continues to negotiate with them.
October 18- November 5 – In collaboration with the army, the police forces proceed to raid various abandoned buildings in Montreal, Quebec and its suburbs. They base their raids on sightings of Lortie by members of the population. All of them are unsuccessful which disappoints both Trudeau and Bourassa, who just want this thing to end.
November 6 – Bernard Lortie is hiding in an abandoned apartment complex, listening to the police radio frequencies. It’s unusually calm. He has a gun near him. He doesn’t know why, but he feels like the end is near.The police raid is in progress and they inspect every room of the apartment complex. When they breach into Lortie’s apartment, he points his gun at them, but he soon backs down, out of fear that he will die. Bernard Lortie is charged with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte. Robert Bourassa celebrates his arrest on national television. Trudeau does the same. Both of them are happy that they finally find a FLQ member. The end is near.
November 7 – Robert Demers gets into a room with Bernard Lortie. He will interrogate him to try to find where the others are hiding. Lortie keeps his mouth shut the entire time, leaving Demers feeling like he’s talking to himself. Lortie is thrown in jail, awaiting the capture of his colleagues for his trial. They offer him a plea deal if he rats them out, but he refuses, convinced that Bob Lemieux will be able to free them at the trial.
December 4 - After lengthy negotiations between the two lawyers, they're able to reach the terms to release James Cross. Several members of the FLQ, also wanted, are able to flee to Cuba, with the approval of Fidel Castro and Pierre Elliot Trudeau. After 62 days of capture, James Richard Cross is free. Cross has national television exposure to express his gratitude to everyone who kept looking for him after all these days of captivities. He says he doesn’t know that happened to Laporte, but he wasn’t there when he died. His kidnappers offered no answer as to who killed him.
December 28 - The remaining FLQ members involved in the kidnapping are still hiding in a small rural house in Saint-Luc, Quebec, when they hear police sirens. They think that they can resist a simple police assault with their assault rifles, but Simmons peaks outside from a window and he sees a tank and a lot of soldiers.They start to panic, but they eventually realize that they can't escape the police forever. Paul Rose, Jacques Rose and Francis Simard are arrested without a fight. They lead them to Pierre Laporte’s rotting corpse, still in the trunk of the car. Everything is over. All they fought against during this time came back to haunt them. Quebec won collaborating with the federal government. The catholic church is still there, big businesses too. They failed and they know it.
Before the credits:
Bernard Lortie was sentenced to 20 years in jail. He only served 7.
Paul Rose was sentenced to life in prison. They later found out he was never present when Laporte was killed and was released in 1982. He worked in Quebec' political scene until his death in 2013.
Jacques Rose was sentenced to eight years in jail. He was released in 1978.
Francis Simard was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 1982. He lived a quiet life until his death in 2015.
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