Dir:
John Michael McDonagh
With: Brendan Gleeson, Dylan Moran, Chris O'Dowd
Runtime: 101 minutes
The artist formerly known as Johnny Rotten once said, 'Anger is an energy', in the days before he went off to spread the love by advertising butter. If that is so, then John Michael McDonagh's blistering comedy drama has enough juice to light the whole of the UK and Ireland, with enough left over for the Ukraine.
John Michael, brother of Martin (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) made his directorial debut with The Guard, an enjoyable, odd couple crime caper. There are laughs to be had in the witty, inventive, involving and moving Calvary, too, but in the main they are of the bleakest kind. From title to closing credits, this is one ferociously angry picture. Ounce for ounce, there was probably more light-heartedness to be found in Angela's Ashes.
Brendan Gleeson, whose presence in every movie requiring a bluff, genial Irishman is surely enshrined in international law, stars as Father James Lavelle. Lavelle's parish near Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland, consists of the raging Atlantic on one side and a motley collection of farms, a pub, a garage, and a big house owned by a rich man (played by Dylan Moran) on the other.
One day, Father Lavelle is going about the routine business of confession when he hears startling news from the other side of the partition. In one week, the anonymous confessor tells him, he will be killed. Not because of anything he has done, but because it will make more of an impact to kill a good priest than the other kind, the sort who are the real target of the mystery assailant's wrath.
McDonagh, writer as well as director, has his set-up, and a dandy one it is too. As in The Guard, there is a whiff of the western about the High Noon-ish story. Otherwise, save for the Hollywood style slickness with which he goes about his business, McDonagh's picture is about as Irish as Guinness and Behan. Save for maybe Scotland, there is no other place this story could be set or these themes played out.
It soon becomes apparent that in this corner of modern Ireland the priesthood is no longer held in high esteem. Make that the institutions of Ireland in general. Father Lavelle is met with contempt at every turn. When he goes to the pub, the landlord, being driven out of business by the recession and EU-induced austerity, does not know who he hates most, the bankers or the church. "Your kind," he snarls. "Your time has gone and you don't even ******* realise it."
Up at the mansion, Dylan Moran's banker openly mocks the priest, who stands, in his eyes, as a symbol of the Ireland that was taken to the cleaners by the money men.
If it was not for his lovely golden retriever and his daughter (from a previous, pre-priesthood life), home from London, life would be unbearable for Father Lavelle, with or without an assassin lurking in the shadows. But even in his domestic life there is bleakness, with his daughter (played by Kelly Reilly) carrying her own sorrows.
As the clock ticks on and the days of the calendar are scored off, Father Lavelle attempts to deal with the bile and woe coming at him, all the while trying to figure out who might want to murder him.
Surrounding Gleeson is a veritable drama school full of Irish actors, including Aiden Gillen and Chris O'Dowd. There are some unfamiliar faces too, such as Isaach De Bankole playing the local mechanic, and, returning for his second time in a McDonagh film, young Michael Og Lane.
If it was not for his tungsten-strength cheeriness and philosophical outlook on life, the priest would go under quickly. It takes an odd blend of geniality and toughness to make such a character believable and Gleeson, as so often, comes up with the goods, and more.
As does McDonagh. The trouble is, having put all those institutions and attitudes he deems guilty in the dock, McDonagh does not know when to stop reading the charges or dispensing the punishment. His anger is unfathomable, his wrath limitless.
Which is all well and good in a filmmaker with a point to make, and the lethally droll script takes some of the sting out of the attack, but McDonagh takes matters to such an extreme that the level of fury and cynicism on show becomes almost laughable.
Just when you think he cannot poke a finger any harder in the chest of the viewer, or try to send their jaw clattering to the floor, he takes his best shot. It is like being pummelled: after a while numbness sets in. While that might be cathartic for some, it might not be everyone's idea of a good night at the pictures.
But kudos to McDonagh. He had an idea for his movie, and come hell, high water, or the nerves of the audience, he pursues it. In a business where compromise is too often king, one has to admire his true grit.
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