When you’re committing an act of vengeance, you really hope that final triumph will be the cherry on top to set everything right. But if movies and TV are to be believed, vengeance often leaves you feeling empty or just cycles endlessly. Released in theatres February 7th, and now available on the Mubi streaming platform, Bring Them Down tells the story of two neighbouring Irish sheep farmer families and the bitter violence they bring down upon themselves. All colours of vengeance show up in the film: the satisfying, the immediate, the rudimentary, the self-inflicted, the laboured, and so on.
In his debut feature, director Christopher Andrews captures lush scenery that moves from the expansive to the claustrophobic. People with tons of space get uncomfortably close to each other. Close enough to give a jar of piss or a slap to a loved one. He shoots scenes of convincing violence cleanly and crisply. One sequence with a shotgun is particularly memorable.
Barry Keoghan brings his trademark boyish menace as the son of one of the feuding families. In his first scene, he uses the mannerisms of a fidgety child for some beautiful subtle hostility. This same energy returns later to soften an altercation with his own father, almost like Harpo Marx looking at you silly after cutting off your necktie with large scissors.
Keoghan’s slightly comedic choices and the aforementioned jar of piss bring some levity to a fairly dour hour and a half. The drum and bassy score works wonderfully to transform the emotion throughout, creating lively tension in a land one of the families has worked for 500 years. At one point, Keoghan’s father refers to Colm Meaney’s character as a “turnip faced cunt” and gets a cheerful “nice one, uncle” for his efforts. A nice reminder that revenge can be a little fun sometimes too.
Christopher Abbott plays the son in the other feuding family, although he’s a generation older than Keoghan’s character. He performs his role with focused sadness, all his expressions observed through the prism of a traumatic opening scene flashback.
Abbott is great in this and the following is obviously no fault of his. 10 years ago, a woman cheated on me in devastating fashion. Christopher Abbott looks like the guy she did it with. He also looks like, even moreso, her brother. Have you ever been distracted watching a movie because one of the actors looks like someone who wronged you? Comment down below which actor and which person who wronged you.
The acts of violence and retribution pile up until a perspective shift halfway through resets the story to the beginning. It felt like either the movie or the viewer’s own personal desire to see revenge enacted lost steam here. But this works in a way to support the film’s more overt examination of vengeance. The flame goes out and reignites.
The perspective shift gives us the chance for an ultimately futile empathy. And shows us that Abbott and Keoghan share the pain of losing someone and maybe the jealousy of their escape. There’s a self-desentization process going on throughout. Everything builds to some truly gruesome stuff midway through, to the point that the gruesome crescendo doesn’t feel all that bad. It also builds to the point where everybody is slapping everybody around in an all out slapfest.
As a commentary on the zig zagging emotional peaks and troughs of vengeance it works well and the movie is entertaining and gripping throughout. The finale is not very satisfying though, feeling a bit dragged out. But if that’s the true reflection of how revenge makes you feel in the end, what’s there to complain about?
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