An intense performer who often plays idealistic young men in crisis, Hart was perfectly cast as fellow-Liverpudlian and legendary Beatle John Lennon in Iain Softley's fine drama Backbeat (1994), reprising a role he had played in The Hours and Times (US, d, Christopher Münch, 1992). In Ken Loach's Spanish Civil War film, Land and Freedom (UK/Germany/Spain, 1995), he gave a remarkable performance as Dave Carne, a naïve Liverpudlian bound up in tragic circumstances. Roles as Martin Donovan's gay lover in Hollow Reed (UK/Germany, d. Angela Pope, 1996), shiftless Dan in Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland (1999), shabby private detective Parkis in The End of the Affair (UK/Germany/US, d. Neil Jordan, 1999), and the desperate father in Liam (UK/Germany/Italy, d. Stephen Frears, 2001), demonstrate his adaptable, risk-taking talent. Melinda Hildebrandt, Encyclopedia of British Film
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