Richard Harris plays a crusty old Irish farmer, who after a lifetime spent tending a small plot of land for an English widow defies anyone to challenge his right to ownership when the property is offered for sale by public auction, but meets unexpected competition from a greedy American developer intent on paving it. How the Irishman finally acquires his precious field, and at what cost, makes for an often powerful drama, but everything after the auction itself is absurd anti-climax, piling tragedy upon tragedy for at least a full half hour of surplus screen time. The story is, of course, analogous to the much larger conflict between Ireland and Britain, suggesting that the Irish, with their near-obsessive attachment to the land, can at times be their own worst enemy. Tom Berenger's Ugly American is nothing more than a two-dimensional Yankee stereotype, and Elmer Bernstein's music score is all wrong, but the final, striking image of Harris trying in vain to hold back the tide aptly illustrates the futility of his challenging the inevitable.
