Rent Bring Them Down (2024)

Miserable Gruesome Irish film bout a family/neighbour feud. Interesting for multiple points of view. - Bring Them Down review by PV

Hmmm, what to make of this. well, if you wait till the credits at the end you'll see it's funded to the hilt by state-funded bodies, including BFI and the UK film fund, because this is an Ireland -UK-Belgian productions (the producers have Flemish names). So if you're in the UK, your taxes went into funding this (as well as the odious Kneecap movie).

For me, the most interesting this about this film is the multiple points of view, You have to concentrate! It's not signposted with captions and dates etc. This has been done before in movies - and loads of times in novels.

But some of it is unclear and should be spelt out a tad more - for example that one man's girlfriend because his enemy's wife. Though why she'd bother with ether is beyond me.

Not sure I believe the plot or what happens (NO SPOILERS) - just to add that most here have a backstory in horror movies. it shows,. Or screams.

No, this is not about that made-up modern manhating concept 'toxic masculinity' at all. It's about a family/neighbourly dispute getting out of hand. The location looks blealy beautiful but this ain't an ad for the Irish Tourist Board, for sure!

The actors do well wallowing in perpetual misery. Knowing how speech coaches can train actors and singers to speak/sing in a foreign language, I'm not as amazed by actors speaking the Irish language here as some - both Elvis and the Beatles recorded songs in German and other languages, just parroting the sounds phonetically without knowing the languages.

Note that as with the awful Kneecap film, if you make a movie using it you are more or less guaranteed state funding from the Irish government schemes AND bizarrely from BFI and the UK FilmFundx. HY? Because they are diversity-worshipping bureaucrats obsessed with such stuff.

Not awful, Not great. But very VERy miserabilist and depressing, so I'm sure the same writer/director will get oodles of state funding (from Ireland and the UK tax payer) for his next pet project.

3 stars.

Savage Irish thriller - Bring Them Down review by GI

A dark, brooding story of toxic masculinity and ultimately vengeance set in the Irish countryside where two sheep farming families harbour grudges while dealing with their own family strife. American actor Christopher Abbott, impressively able to speak Irish here, plays Michael, who seems unable to ever please his bullying and ailing father (Colm Meaney) especially as there's past trauma in their family. Michael also has to deal with neighbouring farmers Gary (Paul Ready) and his son Jack (Barry Keoghan). There's an old hatred between the two farmers aggravated by Gary's wife formerly being Michael's girlfriend. When Jack stupidly steals two of Michael's best rams it sets of a chain of events that leads to violence. The film has an interesting structure and you get to see the events from different perspectives which makes the film all the more engaging. There's a savage and impressive music score too in this great first feature from director Chris Andrews although I found the ending a little underwhelming.