WHILE revenge is a dish best served cold in real life, it has traditionally been a spicier affair on the big screen.
From Death Wish to John Wick, the revenge thriller has long thrived upon a formula where a protagonist is grievously wronged and we are then treated to a vicariously thrilling fly-on-the-wall account of them settling their score, eschewing any potentially mediating nuances in favour of extreme prejudice gratification.
Writer and first-time feature director Chris Andrews attempts something a little different with Bring Them Down, his revenge flick set deep in the rural isolation of Connemara’s sheep farming countryside.
It offers a classic set-up - a sheep rustling incident sparks a steadily escalating outbreak of violence between two neighbouring farmers with a longstanding feud, Mikey (Christopher Abbott) and Gary (Paul Ready) - but then dares to stray from the straight-ahead path between provocation and blood-splattered resolution to reveal why the matters at hand are actually more complex than they first appear.
It’s a bold move, and one that initially lets some steam out of the pressure cooker of tension that Andrews has so effectively established during the first half of the film.
Chris Andrews has served up a hot, meaty shepherd’s pie stuffed with road rage, animal cruelty, punch-ups, stabbings, shootings and an actual decapitation
The opening acts introduce us to Mikey, his ailing father Ray (Colm Meaney, giving good curmudgeon) and their nasty neighbour Gary, who’s married to Mikey’s ex, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone).
We already suspect that latter pair’s son, Jack (Barry Keoghan at his shifty best), has been up to no good on Mikey’s land with his dodgy cousin, Lee (Aaron Heffernan), and the film’s sudden perspective-flip duly winds back the clock to fill us in on the whys and wherefores, including the frankly horrific crimes against sheep they’ve been perpetrating.
We also gain a little insight into Gary’s situation and the reasons why he bears such ill will towards Mikey’s family.
Such illuminating reveals add extra layers of queasy grimness to a film already rich in miserable goings on. Its bleak tone is set with an opening flashback scene depicting a car crash which provides the catalyst for the events which unfold thereafter as well as Mikey’s haunted present day countenance.
Featuring a cameo by Susan Lynch as Mikey’s mother, it makes for a gripping opening sequence. However, once the film moves to the present day, what we’ve just witnessed strains the credulity of a key relationship.
Let’s just say that the enduring affection one character retains for Mikey in the wake of the accident he caused would require them to possess a forgiving streak wider than the Connemara mountains which loom imposingly over the vast, craggy landscape that adds instant production value to the film courtesy of cinematographer Nick Cooke.
The sheep farmers in Bring Them Down - its clever title inspired by the practice of bringing flocks down off the mountainside - are preoccupied with keeping their animals free from disease: however, the humans here are displaying a variety of worrying symptoms including hair-trigger tempers, a lack of empathy and a propensity for deceit, cruelty and violence.
Toxic masculinity has blighted them all, even the women (all three of them - Jack’s auntie appears in two brief scenes), and there’s a famine of forgiveness among these life-hardened characters which allows minor quarrels to spiral violently out of control.
Initially, Mikey goes against the grain by attempting to resolve his problems peacefully in the face of provocation from Gary and his own dad, the latter relying on Mikey for constant care due to crippling knee ailments.
Jack also displays hints of soulfulness and emotional intelligence that set him apart from his own father. With his parents’ marriage on the rocks and a familial financial crisis looming, one heartbreaking scene finds the traumatised son finally snapping. Having been punched to the ground, Gary then offers up the only display of fatherly affection in the entire movie.
Keoghan is probably now slightly too old to be playing this kind of ‘youth at the crossroads’ role, but his uncanny knack for selling baby-faced psychos to audiences (Love/Hate, Calm With Horses et al) means he still manages to pull it off with aplomb.
American actor Abbott is excellent as the intense, taciturn Mikey and shows off a very convincing Irish accent when he does speak - including the scenes where he bickers as Gailege with his Gaeilgeoir father.
Paul Ready’s Belfast accent is pretty decent also, and the English actor clearly relished the chance to play a villain who’s the polar opposite of his terminally meek character in TV’s Motherland.
Nora-Jane Noone’s Caroline has literally been scarred by her toxic environment and, just as she’s about to escape, she instead finds herself dealing with a fresh male-perpetrated hell.
Given what we learn about Caroline as events unfold, there’s probably another version of this film in which she decides to just put Gary, Mikey and Ray down for their own/everyone’s good before setting the farms alight and hitting the road with Jack to start a new life.
However, as it stands, Chris Andrews has served up a hot, meaty shepherd’s pie stuffed with road rage, animal cruelty, punch-ups, stabbings, shootings and an actual decapitation, all swimming in a rich gravy of toxic masculinity and inherited trauma.
Those hungry for straightforward revenge thrills will probably wish it was a little leaner in its storytelling, but the extra time taken to flesh out the characters serves the drama well and helps to elevate Bring Them Down above the base elements of the genre.
Above all, it marks its writer/director out as a new talent to keep an eye on: his recent BIFA Best Debut Director award was certainly well-deserved.
Rating: 3/5
Bring Them Down is showing at QFT Belfast now, visit queensfilmtheatre.com for tickets and showtimes
