In a war that knows no loyalties, justice can often be blinded. And in a war that often tears families apart, friendship can flower in the most unlikely places.

As grim Belfast continues to reel from years of sectarian violence, one film has chosen to look beyond the violence in the streets.

Directed by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot), In the Name of the Father is based on Gerry Conlin's autobiographical Proved Innocent and provides a probing look into the effects of years of warfare.

Centering on the father and son of the Conlin family, the film follows their years of wrongful imprisonment and their struggle for freedom.

The younger Conlin, Gerry, (Daniel Day-Lewis) is the ne'er-do-well son of a struggling family. His father, Guiseppe (Pete Postlethwaite), is a man trying to keep his health and family together. And Gerry and his Da' cannot see eye to eye until tragedy strikes.

Mistaken for a rooftop sniper while stealing scrap metal, Gerry attracts the attention of a wandering British patrol and the Irish Republican Army. Fleeing, he has no choice but to go "over the water" to England, and arrives just as the IRA launches a bombing campaign. Mistaken for an IRA agent, Gerry is turned in.

As Gerry cracks under intense and often brutal interrogation, British police squads round up his entire family and blame them for a bombing that killed five. Under extreme public pressure, a kangaroo court convicts Gerry and his family, and Gerry and his father end up in the same cell.

After years of imprisonment, enter Mrs. Pierce (Emma Thompson), a British lawyer bent on freeing the two. Although the film never really explains why Thompson's character is so interested in the prisoners, she brings her typical pluck and steel to the role.

The film could have turned into a standard courtroom drama at this point, but it does not. Sheridan makes a wise choice in focusing on the relationship between Gerry and Guiseppe. Audiences know there will be a happy ending, but they are not assured of a happy family.

Sheridan is free to apply his honed sense of dramatic sentimentalism (see My Left Foot) and both Postlethwaite and Day-Lewis oblige.

A fight between father and son turns into an embrace and harsh words turn soft as both men grow in friendship. Gerry begins to understand his father's burden's and Guiseppe acknowledges his son's need for respect.

In the Name of the Father walks a fine line in its treatment of the politics of the conflict. Both the British and the IRA are depicted as equally brutal, allowing Sheridan's message that love can conquer shine through.

Without these little touches, the film would be ordinary; with them it becomes extraordinary.