SummaryIn the dark underbelly of rural Ireland, ex-boxer Douglas “Arm” Armstrong (Cosmo Jarvis) has become a feared enforcer for the drug-dealing Devers family. When his ruthless employers order him to kill for the first time, his loyalties are tested.
SummaryIn the dark underbelly of rural Ireland, ex-boxer Douglas “Arm” Armstrong (Cosmo Jarvis) has become a feared enforcer for the drug-dealing Devers family. When his ruthless employers order him to kill for the first time, his loyalties are tested.
The result might not be unique in its narrative about a misunderstood man devoid of the means to get out of his own way, but Calm with Horses is stunning in its execution nonetheless.
Lots of elements of the story feel familiar, but they play out in unusual and unpredictable ways here. We’ve seen the heavy-with-a-heart character before, but Jarvis gives Arm real pathos, even at his most violent.
A great movie, with a great cast. Beautifully shot and directed. Tense, emotional and perfectly paced. One of the best Irish films of the last ten years, it does Colin Barrets short story justice.
Despite a lot of critical acclaim, Independent Irish cinema never seems to get the audience it deserves and, most likely, Calm With Horses (also known as The Shadow of Violence) will be another casualty of that. Those that choose to overlook this film will only be doing themselves a disservice as it’s a taut and very well executed crime drama. First-time director Nick Rowland gets up close and personal in his depiction of low-key, working class criminals and isn’t shy in depicting the violence and brutality involved in their day-to-day lives. However, the film is much more than that. As a character study, there’s a genuine emotion that courses throughout the film as it explores the complexity of the small town’s inhabitants whose bleak surroundings are reflected in their motivations. For a debut film, Nick Rowland has a strong handling on the material with a keen eye for a shot and even stronger ability to tease out great performances from the cast. Barry Keoghan will be a familiar face to many having recently appeared in American Animals, Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He’s certainly a talented performer but he’s overshadowed by the work of protagonist, Cosmo Jarvis. As a brutish, troubled man-child, Jarvis injects such humanity into his role that watching him search for some form of redemption is just heartbreaking. It’s a magnetic central performance amidst a finely crafted slice-of-life.
Buoyed by Joe Murtagh’s screenplay, which keeps the warring elements of the narrative elegantly balanced throughout, the excellent ensemble cast create a complex emotional ecosystem through which our troubled antihero stumbles in search of his identity.
First-time feature director Nick Rowland makes the violence in-your-face and the scenes where Arm starts to struggle with it wrenching. Dude stages a mean Irish backroads car-chase, too.
The film's poetry is like the close-up of the clenched fist that Rowland uses to introduce us to his character study — there’s a thoughtfulness behind the tight fingers, maybe even a broken soul, but its expression is that of a blunt object.
It’s powerfully and pugnaciously acted, and horses are brought in – as animals often are in social-realist movies – as symbols of redemptive nobility. But I felt that in narrative terms it turned into a cul-de-sac of macho violence.
The movie tries to convince you that Douglas is better than his worst self and can transcend the dehumanizing degradations in which he’s mired. But not even the filmmakers seem convinced, which may explain why they embrace baroque brutality topped by a dollop of audience-mollifying sentimentality.
Originally titled "Calm with Horses," this gritty drama with a soft underbelly capably tells the story of a former boxer-turned-enforcer for an Irish crime family whose loyalty gets tested when he's assigned a particularly gruesome task, all while he attempts to reconcile with his estranged wife and autistic son. Director Nick Rowland's debut feature serves up a familiar story with a number of intriguing twists that provide an interesting venue for its multidimensional characters, roles that give the picture's excellent ensemble cast much to work with, especially protagonist Cosmo Jarvis and sinister sidekick Barry Keoghan. The picture drags a bit in a few spots, and the actors' thick accents sometimes challenge the viewer's audio comprehension capabilities, but there's much to like in this otherwise-fine offering. In fact, I liked just about everything about this film except its title(s), neither of which suit it particularly well. But, as with a good book, if the content captivates, who cares what the cover looks like?
This is very much a bleak, gritty watch, with lots of swearing, aggression, bloody violence and the like. I thought it was interesting seeing how the young children reacted being around the aggressive people, their parents (primarily the father). It's a dark and sad watch at times but it does have some quite gripping scenes - confrontations and a fast paced car chase scene coming to mind. Its a film about family and loyalty set in Ireland.
The performances are pretty good and yes, I'd recommend this film, if your interested.
Barry Keoghan continues to build a very good resume, but this film belongs to Cosmo Jarvis.
The drama doesn't quite land for the most part but it was still a very compelling film.
(Mauro Lanari)
Like having transferred "Tyrannosaur" (Considine 2011) from England to Ireland: a brutal story of violent men who are denied any redemption. Then someone wonders why the Kendrick Brothers' rubbish is successful.