This gripping documentary chronicles the extraordinary life of Ben Dunne, an Irish mogul whose story is filled with twists and turns. From his kidnapping by the IRA to his involvement in a Succession-style business rivalry and even a drugs bust where U2 made a cameo, Dunne's life reads like a Hollywood script.
Extraordinary Life: The Ben Dunne Story review – gripping insight into the grand and absurd adventures of a very 1980s Irish mogul
It captures the grand, absurd sweep of Dunne’s life – his upbringing as the son of Ben Dunne snr . There is also his October 1981 kidnapping at the hands of the Provisionals. The Dunnes seem to have been open to paying for his release but were frustrated by a government policy of not entertaining Provo ransom demands. The suggestion is that, in the end, the cash reached the terrorists anyway.
But this gripping documentary starts at the more obvious point: Dunne’s 1992 breakdown in a Florida hotel, where a cocaine binge with an escort in a luxury hotel appears to have tipped over into a psychotic episode. Bono had caught wind that “some guy named Dunne” had been arrested for drug trafficking – and assumed it was a member of the Dunne crime family that had unleashed heroin upon Dublin in the late 1970s. It would never have occurred to him – or anyone else – that it was jocular Ben Dunne who had built his father’s business into a colossus with annual revenues of more than a billion pounds.
If he lacked academic prowess, he was ruthless as a businessman. He nearly precipitated an economic crisis when his “bread war” strategy in the 1980s undercut his rivals – and threatened ruination on bakers. He also cracked down on workers who refused to handle goods from South Africa . It is a chapter of history rapidly receding from our collective lived experience. This effusive and non-judgemental portrait of Dunne reminds us what it was like and how much better we all are for having left that Ireland behind forever.
Ben Dunne Irish Mogul IRA Kidnapping Business Rivalry Drugs Bust
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