‘The Negotiator’ review: Portrait of US senator George J Mitchell, Good Friday Agreement architect

Dir: Trevor Birney. Northern Ireland. 2025. 92mins.

A tribute to the politician who helped shepherd the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, The Negotiator offers an appealing but limited portrait of former Democratic US senator George J Mitchell. Director Trevor Birney conducts a series of interviews with the statesman about how he found himself in charge of navigating a tenuous peace in Northern Ireland after so many failed attempts by others. Boasting a wealth of impressive talking heads, this affectionate documentary feels a bit glossy and uninquisitive, despite its laudable advocacy for level-headed diplomacy over senseless bloodshed

Does not go to great lengths to illuminate Mitchell’s inner life, contradictions or complexities

Screening in Galway after Docs Ireland, the film could attract curious Irish viewers interested in Mitchell’s shaping of Northern Ireland history. Elsewhere, though, The Negotiator may be of limited interest, except perhaps among US audiences familiar with the veteran politician. Nonetheless, Birney’s role as a producer of the Bafta-winning hip-hop biopic Kneecap should bolster awareness.

Mitchell, who turns 92 this year, explains that he has had many jobs, including lawyer, federal judge and senator. But as far as he is concerned, he has been primarily a negotiator — a skill necessary in each of those roles. Here he looks back at his life, with much of the documentary focusing on the four years he spent orchestrating a resolution between different factions in Northern Ireland, Ireland and Britain in the mid-to-late 1990s. In addition, Birney speaks to peers and world leaders, including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, to get a sense of what makes Mitchell such a shrewd negotiator.

The film does not go to great lengths to illuminate Mitchell’s inner life, contradictions or complexities. Beyond his surprising decision to step down from the US Senate in 1994, when he was an enormously popular majority leader, in order to get married and have a family in his early 60s, The Negotiator takes little notice of him as a flesh-and-blood individual, more interested in chronicling his professional achievements. Birney’s talking heads are quite complimentary of his intelligence, judgment and decency, but personal anecdotes and revealing tidbits are in short supply.

Similarly, Mitchell is fairly reserved in his interviews. Not given to grandstanding or brash pronouncements, he exudes a quiet dignity, projecting calm authority whether discussing his military service in the 1950s or recalling his time in the US Senate. Befitting its buttoned-down title, The Negotiator honours a man whose lack of flash belied a diligence and moral seriousness that earned him the admiration of his colleagues. He first came to national prominence during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, meticulously scuppering Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s manipulative appeals to US patriotism. Quickly, Mitchell’s fellow senators recognised his mastery of using measured, rational logic rather than inflammatory rhetoric.

As Mitchell recollects the arduous process of bringing together all sides to discuss peace in Northern Ireland, he dissects his strategies and philosophy – but never to bolster his own legacy. His peers praise his humility, and indeed even when Mitchell gets somewhat personal — noting that part of his interest in taking on the Northern Ireland peace process was that his father’s family had come from Ireland — it is mentioned only briefly before moving on to other matters.

Birney maps the path to the Good Friday Agreement without amplifying the suspense in artificial ways. Instead, the film becomes a study in the nuts and bolts of diplomacy, which is rarely glamorous work. What becomes clear is that Mitchell possessed an incredible amount of patience and an innate ability to sense when these fractious sides were ready to make a deal — not to mention a canny instinct not to push them too hard too fast. The Negotiator would not be described as scintillating, but it lays out the obstacles, including unpredictable waves of fresh violence in the region, that could have destroyed the agreement before it was finalised.

Far from a comprehensive overview, The Negotiator elides several meaningful chapters in Mitchell’s life. His aborted peace negotiations in the Middle East are not mentioned, nor is his first marriage. Best to view this documentary as Birney’s appreciation of a politician who insisted that violence was not the answer in Northern Ireland — nor was empty sabre-rattling at the negotiation table. Mitchell speaks softly, but the message resonates loudly.