Film Review - Calvary (2014)

From the opening scene it is clear John Michael Mc Donagh is aiming for a weightier tone than the lighter one successfully employed in his previous box office smash The Guard. An older looking and bearded Brendan Gleeson plays Father James, a priest who at the beginning is sitting in the confession box. Off-screen we hear someone enter and start talking. There follows a quite astonishingly worded first line by the off screen character (mentioned in surprised awe by the Father James after it is spoken. Indeed there is some reflexive play on writing and characterisation littered throughout Calvary). The camera stays on Gleeson’s wonderful face throughout. The set up for the film is established in this scene: Father James has a week to get his house in order before he is murdered. This sets in motion a week where Father James meets up with all his regular parishioners (played by an assortment of famous Irish faces) and starts to think about how he has spent his years as a priest. There is also the small matter of family issues to deal with.  

The film is sectioned into days of the week which propels it forward nicely towards the inevitable showdown. It is clear that Father James is heavily involved in the lives of his parishioners. And what a group they are: there is Jack Brennan (Chris O’Dowd) the town butcher having marital difficulties. He believes his wife Veronica (Orla O’Rourke) is having an affair with Simon (Isaach De Bankolé). There is the rich banker Michael Fitzgerald (Dylan Moran) with difficulties money can’t buy. There is also Dr. Frank Harte (Aidan Gillen) the most cynical of doctors. We also have Milo (Killian Scott) who is lonely desperately so and local barman Brendan (Pat Shortt) who watches and sees everything. It should also be mentioned that legendary character actor M. Emmet Walsh turns up as a reclusive American writer. Add to all this Father James has to deal with Bishop Montgomery (David Mc Savage) and inept priest Father Timothy Leary (David Wilmot). There are a lot of troubles ahead.

There is a touch of an Agatha Christie whodunit about the set up here. Each character could conceivably hold a grudge if not against the priest certainly against the Catholic Church. This seems to be Mc Donagh’s theme here. Does a good man have to keep apologising for the wrongs of an organisation? And more importantly should he die for that organisation? Not for nothing is this film called Calvary. There is a lot to like about this film. As mentioned Gleeson is always a pleasure on screen and it is great to see him in a leading role. But for me the problems far outweigh the good qualities on show. Whilst the acting from the cast is pretty good very few of them can get under the skin of the characters they are playing (Chris O’Dowd is a notable exception). This is mainly due to a quite frankly poor screenplay. Some of the dialogue is fine and occasionally inspired. But the main problem with the screenplay is the same that plagued The Guard, namely the characters speaking the same cod philosophy and phraseology. Here it is expanded out to a much larger cast. The effect of this is exhausting meaning we never really get to know any of the characters (there a lot of speaking roles, more than even mentioned in the last paragraph, far too many really). This is all fine if you place the film within a heightened universe, so the dialogue can be played up theatrically say. But this so grounded in the admittedly beautiful Sligo soil that the words sound ridiculous and staged when they should sound heartfelt and realistic.

Calvary will no doubt have its fans. Indeed it would be nice to see an Irish Film Board funded film do well at the box office. But there is a sense here that Mc Donagh has not really moved on from The Guard. And with the success of that film maybe he does not need to. But for me this is a film that despite some good moments, a great cast and some gorgeous cinematography just does not work. By the time the final act happens (which aims for and fails to achieve a kind of operatic grandeur) you just do not really care. A missed opportunity. 

Film Review - The Tiger's Tail (2006)

I remember quite well the general reaction from people when I first mentioned that I was going to write a blog on Irish film: from the usual ‘that should take up five minutes of your time’ reaction to the genuinely puzzled ‘why?’ Sadly the overwhelming reaction was that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, putting the boot into all the bad Irish films that have been made. There were reasons to think this. Irish film doesn’t have a great reputation with Irish people and some of that is deserved. But my intention was to try and seek out good films that may have been discarded and hopefully get people to see films that they otherwise would not. This was to me a lofty; if naïve, idea to be honest but I felt that there was no point in sneering at Irish films as it has been done to death. I tried to find good things to say about films even if, as a whole, the films themselves didn’t work. In a word I wanted to be reasonable. And then I watched The Tiger’s Tail.

Of course I had heard that it was a troubled film and that the reviews had been less than favourable. But as I scrolled through my DVR and saw it sitting there I thought why not? It was directed by the great John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance) and starred Brendan Gleeson. They were the team behind the rather wonderful The General eight years previously. It was also supposed to take aim at the relentless consumerism that the now waning Celtic Tiger had helped create. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as its reputation suggests?

I have yet to see all the Irish films ever made so I cannot call The Tiger’s Tail the worst Irish film ever made. But what I can say for certainty is that it the worst, most offensive Irish film that I have ever seen. The plot goes like this - Gleeson plays Liam, a man who seems to have it all: a successful property business, a glamorous wife (Kim Cattrall) and the respect he has always craved. His life starts to unravel when he sees a double of himself. It is not long before his double starts to try and take over his life.

Oh where to even begin with the problems. Apparently it is a black comedy but on viewing, one could only think scenes were added in editing as the drama was so bad. The film is neither funny nor dramatic. Gleeson throws himself into this but he is uncomfortable throughout. The risible script seems to be why as he delivers lines that you know he can’t quite believe he is saying. There are heavy-handed scenes that are supposed to reflect the consumerist times we live in but they are just so over the top as to be scarcely credible. The Temple Bar scene resembles the seventh circle of hell, the A&E scene, the same. This approach of bludgeoning the viewer loses any sense of what the filmmaker is trying to say. You would think that a director of Boorman’s stature would know when to rein it in. But this film has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. There is an unscrupulous dodgy politician called Bertie in it for Christ’s sake. As for Kim Cattrall - this makes the casting of Julia Roberts in Michael Collins seem like a masterstroke. Her accent is mid Atlantic Dublin whatever the hell that is. In fairness, her part is not even on the page.

All of this would be just about forgivable if it wasn’t for one of the most unpleasant scenes I have ever watched in a film. Liam’s double comes home pretending to be Liam and essentially rapes his wife. She fights at first and then seems to accept the inevitable and indeed eventually enjoys it. This is grotesque enough but then the film adds in the post coital conversation where he offends her and she slaps him. He slaps her back quite forcefully across the face and she looks shocked but then laughs and smiles because she deserves it. This is a spectacularly offensive scene and one of the most misjudged I have ever come across. If this all seems like I am giving away spoilers it is because I am. Nobody should have to sit through this. The Tiger’s Tail should in fact now be the litmus test for bad Irish films. If you can somehow get through it, you can watch anything.

If this seems too mean and a bit like shooting fish in a barrel well so be it. But this matters! It matters when the Irish Film Board’s money is put into something like this. Whatever about a Return on Investment there should be at least someone reading the goddamn script and saying ‘hold on a minute’. By the look of the film I could only imagine it wasn’t pocket money that was invested. In a time when a terrific low budget film like Tin Can Man (see previous review) cannot even find any distribution it is shameful at best and downright irresponsible at worst that this is how money was invested. There are a lot of micro budget films out there that even small amounts of money could help in a real way. That is the real shame of The Tiger’s Tail.

Film Review - Perrier's Bounty (2009)

The Gangster film as a genre is one of formula.  Like any other genre, there are standards and tropes we come to expect to be in most, if the not all, of the films. There is the innocent guy generally with a girl to protect. He has a set amount of time to get either a product or money to a crime boss. The crime boss is generally not introduced until about a third of the way through the film but his legend is established in other characters conversations. And there are usually a couple of henchmen who do the dirty work for the main boss.

The origins of the gangster film is American with the 1912 film The Musketeers of Pig Alley by DW Griffith one of the earliest examples. The American gangster film sits proudly alongside the Western as one of America’s finest contributions to film history. What is very interesting is when the genre is subverted or filtered through another country’s culture. The most obvious examples in the US are Quentin Tarantino’s 1990s films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and Guy Richie’s Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in the UK.

The main problem with the films listed above is not with the films themselves but rather the influence of them on films that came after. In the US in the 1990s there were a lot of films described as Tarantinoesque which were nothing but a pale imitation of his filmic style. In the UK it has been arguably worse. While Lock Stock is no masterpiece, it stands as a towering achievement when stood beside some of the quite appalling films that came after. But what flows through the US to the UK will inevitably flow into Ireland as well. And it is this flow which brings us to Perrier’s Bounty.

Perrier’s Bounty is directed by talented Irish filmmaker Ian Fitzgibbon (Death of a Superhero) and written by Mark O Rowe (Intermission, Boy A). It possesses a heavyweight cast including Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Cunningham and Jim Broadbent. There is a serious pedigree here. The plot is a fairly basic one. Michael McCrea (Murphy) has a day to return money owed to gang boss Darren Perrier (Gleeson). Add to this mix, his father (Broadbent) - who turns up to make peace with him - and Perrier’s two henchmen (nicely played by Don Wycherly and Michael Mc Elhatton) who are a constant threat. The film is set up within the classic gangster structure.

First thing to say and it pains me to say it a little as I had heard good things, this film is a mess from start to finish. It falls into the familiar trap of the post Tarantino generation of having every character sound exactly the same. All the characters talk in a quite frankly bizarre way, spurting forth with cod philosophy at every turn for no real reason. It starts to grate 20 minutes in and by the end of the film you are almost pleading with them through the screen to stop talking. This is a serious flaw and a real pity as there are some good lines of dialogue throughout. It is just that they should only have come from one character. Instead they all just came from the screenwriter.

The acting throughout the film is uneven with Murphy playing it like his heart isn’t in it. Cunningham does the best overall with not much to go on. He has become one of our great character actors and should have really been a bigger star than he is. His delivery of a great line is one the films few highlights. Looking a woman up and down in a bar he describes her as ‘dirty, like a bag of carrots’. Gleeson is ok, but he has done this thing before in better films than this. My heart weeps for Broadbent who is comically miscast. His bizarre accent, swaying between English and Irish is absurd. One wonders what possessed him to take the part. There is also a slightly cringe worthy narration from Gabriel Byrne, the purpose of which is to seemingly mock film narration. It doesn’t work. All it does is call to mind narrations that work such as Sam Elliott’s in The Big Lebowski.

Overall, Perrier’s Bounty is not worth the effort to see it. Rowe’s previous screenplay Intermission makes better use of his writing talents. This is a muddled film, caught between aping the 1990s English gangster film and trying to add something through an Irish filter. It succeeds at neither. All involved have gone on to bigger and better things and for that, one imagines, they can breathe a sigh of relief after making this film. 

Film Review - In Bruges (2008)

Bruges, a most genteel of Belgian towns, becomes a form of limbo for Ray and his more experienced colleague Ken in Martin Mc Donagh’s In Bruges. Their penance for what has happened is a prolonged stay in this town. They are both professional killers and a botched job means they have to lay low for awhile and await instructions from their boss Harry. The feeling of limbo and awaiting judgement is reinforced by how they spend their time in Bruges which includes a visit to see Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Last Judgement.

Limbo is the right word to use here as Ray and Ken are deep in guilt, atonement and forgiveness. This is quite a deeper level of film than is promised in the quite breezy trailer which seemed to promise an action comedy. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising with Mc Donagh being behind acclaimed dark plays such as The Leenane Trilogy and the Oscar winning short film Six Shooter. The two films share an actor in Brendan Gleeson, here playing the older and more experienced Ken. He is a kind of father figure to Ray (Colin Farrell, never more charismatic) who is barely holding it together after the botched killing. To Ray, being banished to Bruges is part of their suffering whereas Ken uses it to quietly assess his life and how he has lived it. They essentially become classic Irish tourists abroad, staring at the sights and going to pubs as much as possible as they wait for the call from Harry (Ralph Fiennes).

Fiennes is a revelation when he finally shows up in the film. Channelling the same kind of energy that Ben Kinsgley used in Sexy Beast Fiennes is both frightening and very funny. He loves Bruges (‘it’s a fairytale’) and there is a terrific long take in which he talks to Ken about Bruges and in which Ken has to lie about how much Ray loves it. This scene works beautifully in both a funny and tension filled way but moves into much darker territory when Harry starts to refer to Ray in the past tense. The character of Harry is important to the themes of this film. He represents a kind of skewed morality which is played out by him in the film’s dénouement. He believes in an eye for an eye, while Ken believes in forgiveness and second chances. Ray is caught in the middle, a man lost amidst his own guilt.

The cinematography is quite beautiful in this film although to some degree it would be hard to fail with a beguilingly beautiful town such as Bruges. The acting is excellent, with Farrell in particular showing with proper direction and characterisation an astounding performance can be coaxed from him. He has never been better. Fiennes and Gleeson are as reliably excellent as ever.

There is also one of the most effective uses of a song to have been committed to film. The song On Raglan Road sung by Luke Kelly and The Dubliners is used to quite astonishing effect in this film. It would be criminal to give away more. Suffice to say it packs an emotional wallop.

This is a long way to go about saying that In Bruges is a superb film. Full of some of the best dialogue we have seen in an Irish film since The Commitments, In Bruges is a brash and confident film debut from Mc Donagh. That it is blackly funny is to be expected from as confident a writer as Mc Donagh. But underneath all the jokes, action and swearing beats a heart and it is this that is the surprising element. There is an emotional core to the film, particularly in Farrell’s performance that brings unexpected depth to, what on the surface, feels like a standard genre film. This is proper filmmaking and there is genuine excitement as to what can be expected from Mc Donagh in the years to come.

Guardian Article My Favourite Film - In Bruges

A very interesting write up about In Bruges by Guardian journalist Peter Beech.

It is one of my favourite Irish films and reading the article has given me the urge to watch it again and put up my own review. Until then enjoy the article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/nov/18/my-favourite-film-in-bruges

Film Review - The Guard (2011)

It is tempting to compare John Michael Mc Donaghs The Guard with his brother Michael Mc Donaghs superficially similar In Bruges. Both star Brendan Gleeson and both are the rarest of Irish films, box office hits in their native country. They were both advertised in their respective trailers as comedies but with a dark heart. But there is a difference in tone which becomes apparent when The Guard begins. It does not go for the jugular and make its characters potentially unlikeable which is the case in In Bruges. The Guard owes its debt to classic Hollywood standards to such as the buddy movies, fish out of water comedies and westerns. Whereas In Bruges is on the surface is also a buddy comedy it quickly becomes a quieter, sadder and more complex and even moving film. The Guard however, whilst aiming for something similar it unfortunately falls short.

The Guard tells the story of Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) a garda with a love of drink and women who gets caught up in an international drug ring investigation led by FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) after he finds one member of the drug ring murdered. This type of film, with the mis-matched pair of leads has been done so many times before and The Guard doesn’t add a lot to it here. The script by John Michael Mc Donagh has some very un-PC and funny lines but falls curiously flat overall. The roles of the villains are particularly underwritten, with only Mark Strong as the ‘Brit’ emerging with any character. His scene with the two policemen who he is paying off is one of the more memorable in the film. His weariness as he patiently explains to them why the money he is bribing them with is all there and accounted for is very funny indeed. The other problem with the villains roles is the propensity for them to keep throwing out philosophical quotes throughout the movie. This is seemingly to add more depth to the stock characters but has the opposite effect and becomes wearisome. There is also a sub plot with Gerry Boyles mother who is dying but this fails to add any real depth to his character or the film in general as it fells like it is tacked on.

Still there is fun to be had when Gleeson is on screen. The role of film lead rests easily on his shoulders and he is the main reason to see the film as he is given nearly all the best lines. Cheadle acquits himsef admirably as the straight man to Gleesons character but receives none of the great lines in the script and he is only seems to exist to react to to Boyles outrageous statements. There are some uncomfortably racist lines in the film which do get some great laughs. When Sgt. Boyle says to Everett that he thought all drug dealers were black, pauses for a beats and then adds or Mexican there is a real uncomfortable laugh to be had. The best line in the film has to be when Gleeson is asked to explain about his racism he explains; ‘Racism, sure its part of the Irish culture’. It is with moments like this that the script sparkles but there are not enough of such moments to sustain the plot which is quite thin to begin with.

Overall The Guard is a film worth seeing in the cinema. It is a perfect Friday night film that will entertain if you do not expect too much from it. If you are expecting a film with the quality and execution of In Bruges you are going to be disappointed. But there are so many poor films that earn phenomenal sums of money at the box office that is easy to justify seeing The Guard on the big screen. You may find that it does not quite live up to the pre release hype and the overly praised reviews. But while it is an entertaining film you may find that apart from Brendan Gleeson performance and the occasional sparkling dialogue you may not remember much else about it.