RE-CREATION OF N. IRELAND MASSACRE GRIPPING, EMOTIONAL.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

DEPLOYING HANDHELD cameras loaded with grainy film stock, English filmmaker Paul Greengrass surrounds us with the angry chaos of ``Bloody Sunday.''

Yes, it's the same incident U2 sang about - the 1972 civil rights march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It was here that British paratroopers opened fire with live ammo, leaving 13 civilians dead and the province in a decades-long state of civil war.

Re-created on a gray housing estate near Dublin, with armed forces veterans and the nephew of one of the dead cast in some key roles, the film does not end up as the work of objective reality re-creation. That's what it so strives in form and initial presentation to be. Still, it comes close, and easily stands alongside such throat-clutching classics of cinematic political action as ``Z'' and ``The Battle of Algiers.''

OK, there's a bit of hokey plotting, too. Greengrass, who also wrote the script, wanted to zero-in on four key representatives, two for each side. One would be a major public figure: For the protesters, it's Ivan Cooper (realistically played by James Nesbitt), a Protestant member of Parliament whose sympathy for his Catholic constituency led him to organize what he hoped would me a Martin Luther King-style, peaceful rally against unlawful detention and other civil rights violations; and for the British, Maj. Gen. Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith), a dismissive type charged with stoppingthe march, whichever way it went.

Greengrass wanted little-guy identifiers too. So one of the paratroopers, only designated as Soldier 027 (Mike Edwards), does not share his mates' certainty that the Catholics are all rock-throwing hooligans who have harmed too many British peacekeepers. On the other side of the barricades, we have 17-year-old Gerry Donaghy (Declan Duddy, the guy whose uncle was lost in the real event) as, well, a Catholic rock-thrower, but one in love with a Protestant girl and determined to stay out of trouble for her sake ... starting Monday.

These two aren't exactly the most original characters ever invented, but much as in a real riot, events soon overcome any doubts about plotting one might have. Step-by-step, practically, we see the impossible task Cooper has set for himself. He's trying to keep a fired-up crowd of 15,000 united and on the same path, all the while worrying that Provisional Irish Republican Army terrorists would exploit the volatile situation.

The film builds tension superbly by cutting between the demonstrators and the Brits, who have multiple scenarios for mass arrests and little patience for the local, Protestant authorities' ideas about how to work things peacefully.

When the growing suspense becomes practically unbearable, hell is unleashed. As a viewer, you feel it from all sides, but most crucially, from the inside. You've been so marinated in the issues and viewpoints and the emotions of the participants at this point that each death bears the sting of personal loss.

And then Greengrass takes sides. Probably the right one - weren't the Brits supposed to use rubber bullets? - but something of the full scope of the tragedy is lost by the filmmaker's late-blooming partisanship.

That noted, ``Bloody Sunday'' is as valuable and harrowing a filmgoing experience as you're likely to have for many Sundays to come.

BLOODY SUNDAY - Three and one half stars

(R: violence, language)

Starring: James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Declan Duddy, Mike Edwards, Nicholas Farrell, Gerard McSorley, Kathy Kiera Clarke.

Director: Paul Greengrass.

Running time: 1 hr. 50 min.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.; University 6, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Cinema verite-like re-creation of the 1972 British massacre of protesters in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The film gives multiple points of view but ultimately loses any pretense of objectivity.

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James Nesbitt portrays an MP who tries to organize a peaceful march for his Catholic constituents in ``Bloody Sunday.''