The Siege of Jadotville

Watch The Siege of Jadotville (2016) online on iFILM, a war drama built around a battle the Irish army spent decades trying to forget. Jamie Dornan stars as Commandant Pat Quinlan, whose 150 men get cut off in the chaos of newly independent Congo.

The setting is the early 1960s. A former Belgian colony has just won its freedom and immediately torn itself apart over who runs it; the UN sends in peacekeepers. Quinlan's lightly armed, barely blooded Irish unit draws the job of holding a mining town. Then roughly 3,000 mercenaries, paid by the men who want the copper, close in around them. For six days the Irish hold off a force outnumbering them twenty to one, while headquarters stalls, no relief arrives, and the ammunition dwindles.

This really happened, and Quinlan's choice to surrender rather than waste his soldiers' lives got him branded a coward back home for years. Mark Strong and Guillaume Canet play the two sides of the diplomatic horse-trading that sealed the men's fate. Tight, grim siege filmmaking for anyone who took to 13 Hours or Lone Survivor. Stream The Siege of Jadotville (2016) online on iFILM.