Synopsis for
Hunger (2008) More at IMDbPro »

The film stars Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican activist who led the 1981 Irish hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatises events in the Maze prison in the months prior to Sands' death.

The film opens with prison guard, Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) preparing to leave for work; checking under his car for bombs, putting on his uniform in the locker room and ignoring the camaraderie of his colleagues.

Davey (Brian Milligan), a new IRA prisoner, arrives at the gaol. Due to his refusal to wear the prison uniform, he is labeled "non-cooperative." His new roommate, Gerry (Liam McMahon), has smeared the cell with faeces from floor to ceiling and we witness their resistance to the prison regime.

Sands is the final focus of the film. He deeply believes in the cause that he was imprisoned for and in the righteousness of dying for political prisoner status. In one of the film's most notable scenes Sands debates the morality of the hunger strike with a visiting priest (Liam Cunningham).