D: Paddy Breathnach
S: Brendan Gleeson, Peter MacDonald, Peter Caffrey, Tony Doyle.
I Went Down is an Irish Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting.
Let me say that again. I Went Down is an Irish Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting.
Thus it has not the budget nor the classical Hollywood background to emulate
the former's wit and character, nor the genuine fly-by-the-pants brashness
to capture the latter's casually hilarious terror.
Much has been made of it in this country, but that is unsurprising. It has
been one of the most heavily hyped Irish films of the last half century,
certainly on this scale of production. Written by playwright Conor McPherson,
the script is on sale in most Irish bookshops for reasons best known to
the publishers. Posters are seen on ordinary bus stops (unheard of for an
ordinary Irish film). Radio stations are plugging it shamelessly and reviews
in the Irish media have been ecstatic. It seems as if this is the hottest
film to come out of Ireland since, oh Pulp Fiction came out of Hollywood
or Trainspotting came out of Scotland.
In their eagerness to liken their project to titles such as these, and to
both utilise and explode conventions of Hollywood gangster films, the makers
of this movie seem to have been far too pleased with themselves to realise
that while it comes closer than any other Irish film of this type has done
to achieving its aims, it is nowhere near worth that kind of attention.
It is primarily a road movie following the adventures of two contrasting
(ho hum) and at least partly inept (chuckle chuckle) Irish hoods on a trip
from Dublin to Cork to settle an old score between two aging gangsters.
On the way they encounter the usual problems of the genre and meet them
with a mixture of the standard cliches and some Irish-themed profanity.
There is even a moral quagmire or two (partly set in a bog, no less), and
a Once Upon a Time in the West climax which finally tells all.
It comes very close to working. It is fresh enough and even occasionally
funny enough to hold your attention as the story trundles towards its inevitable
finale where poetic justice finally punishes the guilty and protects the
innocent. The setting is relatively different for casual audiences (though
familiar to Irish ones) and the cast in general are head and shoulders above
the lines they're speaking.
But for all its huffing and puffing, I Went Down has no real wit
beyond the obvious sexual innuendo exemplified by the word play in its title.
The situations are at best familiar and at worst too convenient to be involving,
and the script is simply not good enough to transcend this. The characters
respond in predictable ways, and despite the best efforts of all concerned,
are never really credible or sympathetic. Peter MacDonald (who bears an
often uncanny resemblance to Nicholas Lindhurst) works hard to earn our
respect as Git, the ex-con who finds himself indebted to ruthless loan shark
Tom French (Tony Doyle) after defending a brainless schoolmate from some
of French's heavies in a pub. He also plays well beside Brendan Gleeson,
as the fearsome but dim and ultimately fairly gentle strongarm, and their
scenes with Peter Caffrey as the rival gangster they're bringing back to
their boss under duress have some moments of interest, largely due to the
performances of the actors. But though we become attached enough to these
two characters in the course of their journey, we don't really feel any
great sense of hope or fear when they are confronted by armed felons at
the climax simply because we know that McPherson has put such effort into
making them lovable, he's not likely to kill them off.
The film is too simplistic and obvious to pull the rug from under your feet,
and never moves beyond the fundamentals of plot and character to get into
the kind of real drama evinced in Trainspotting or the sly tongue-in-cheek
postmodernism of Pulp Fiction, though it dances on the edge of both
quite deliberately. The result is a film which is satisfying enough on the
most basic level, though your tolerance for it may depend on just how many
laddish sex jokes and bursts of flustered profanity you can take. But it
never really draws you in, and it is ultimately as self-obsessed and introverted
as the leagues of low-budget Irish shorts and features which preceded it
and from which it attempts to make a spiritual break. Its desperate attempts
to borrow from Hollywood but retain a respectable distance from the classical
screenplay reek of artistic/national pride, or an assumption that it is
somehow 'better' than the films it apes. The result is not quite well done
enough to work properly and not really all that interesting beyond the obvious,
fun though it can be in spots.
It is certainly far better than the last Irish gangster film, the thoroughly
awful The Courier,but that is not exactly praise. It is also refreshing
to see a general absence of mournful Irish colleens staring moodily across
the barren landscape contemplating motherhood and nationhood, or angry old
men spitting at the advance of modernity. On a deeper level, the film does
attempt to advance the representation of Ireland to a level where further
development may be possible. But it can't quite escape the inevitable navel-gazing,
and its themes of the role of the past in the present and the moral choices
of the apparently amoral are easily transferable to any number of Irish
films. It's also not nearly as much fun as it evidently tries to be; just
a tad too moody and meaningful for a proper sense of entertainment value
which it tries to compensate for with dirty jokes and a sex scene. A balanced
tone is something which still eludes the majority of Irish films, especially
those which attempt the tightrope walk which I Went Down bravely
embarks upon.
In conclusion, it's a start. It is something to note and perhaps applaud
politely, but certainly nothing to go crazy about. But it is interesting
to see that the hype appears to have paid off at the box-office, and Irish
audiences have been flocking to it (relative to other Irish films, that
is). I suppose even a faint breath of fresh air is better than total stagnation.
But we've yet to open the window fully. I Went Down may not really
make it big beyond these shores, but it is good that it has at least tried
to do what it has done, which is to address the Irish audience on terms
as close to international as possible. One day, perhaps, the talent involved
will come up with something better, but there is such a sense of smug self-satisfaction
evident from the film's marketing and publicity interviews that one senses
they might not.
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.