The Butcher Boy
The Butcher Boy, with Eamonn Owens, Steven Rea, Aisling O'Sullivan. From a novel by Pat McCabe; directed by Neil Jordan. MPAA Rating R for violence and language. Run time: 109 minutes.
Hoooeey babies. Somethin' stinks in Ireland.
I hope that in my last few seconds, just before I die, I will be in some way enlightened as to why I was lured into wasting my precious fleeting time on Earth watching crap like this. What "The Butcher Boy" lacks in charm, it more than makes up for in wasted time, money and energy.
<DISCLAIMER>
If the problem here is mine; if I somehow lack the proper level of sophistication to appreciate the dark humor and irony in The Butcher Boy, so be it. The highest order irony I can see is that I've FINALLY found a film that could actually reap huge benefits from the addition of Adam Sandler to the cast.
</DISCLAIMER>
Maybe it's the weather. Maybe if I watch The Butcher Boy on a bright, sunny day I'll be more engaged by the lead character, Francie Brady, played to a lingering death by young Eamonn Owens, who, as far as I can tell, may be the illegitimate son of David Berkowitz and Pippi Longstocking.
As Ritalin-candidate leprechauns go, Francie is the alpha male. He is bright and cloyingly sweet with everyone in his dark little Irish town, except for his psychosis' nemesis, Mrs. Nugent, (Fiona Shaw) whom he tortures, torments, defames, defiles and ultimately murders. His father (Steven Rea) alternates between playing whisky bottles and trumpets; his mother (Aisling O'Sullivan ) is a fresh-from-the-straightjacket, manic-depressive, obsessive-baking-compulsive, suicide-waiting-to-happen. And it does. I'd like to buy a hyphen please, Pat.
Maybe I'm just not cut out for zany black comedies. That Francie Brady tells his own story in a bubbly, almost maniacally happy, gurgling schizophrenic lather is really more than I can stomach. Truth be known, I really can't say the writing was all that bad, considering that my poor vanilla Midwestern ears were incapable of wrenching most of the dialogue from the death grip of the thickest Irish brogues this side of a Chinese subtitled County Derry Lucky Charms commercial. Someone told me, in recommending this film, that I would find it cut from the same cinematic cloth as "A Clockwork Orange". Kubrick should consider himself offically defamed from beyond the grave. The only similarity that I could find were that they were both moovies. They should keep cutting the cinematic cloth and make a nice quilt.
I rented this pooch mostly on the strength of it's being directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview With The Vampire, Michael Collins) and with the task at hand, he did a credible job creating a consistent visual flow. Shame he didn't have a story to tell.
The Butcher Boy smells like yesterday's lunch. Buy a nice copy of Rolling Stone or The Beany Babies Collector's Digest and have a quiet read instead of renting this one.
No cows today, thanks.
Hoooeey babies. Somethin' stinks in Ireland.
I hope that in my last few seconds, just before I die, I will be in some way enlightened as to why I was lured into wasting my precious fleeting time on Earth watching crap like this. What "The Butcher Boy" lacks in charm, it more than makes up for in wasted time, money and energy.
<DISCLAIMER>
If the problem here is mine; if I somehow lack the proper level of sophistication to appreciate the dark humor and irony in The Butcher Boy, so be it. The highest order irony I can see is that I've FINALLY found a film that could actually reap huge benefits from the addition of Adam Sandler to the cast.
</DISCLAIMER>
Maybe it's the weather. Maybe if I watch The Butcher Boy on a bright, sunny day I'll be more engaged by the lead character, Francie Brady, played to a lingering death by young Eamonn Owens, who, as far as I can tell, may be the illegitimate son of David Berkowitz and Pippi Longstocking.
As Ritalin-candidate leprechauns go, Francie is the alpha male. He is bright and cloyingly sweet with everyone in his dark little Irish town, except for his psychosis' nemesis, Mrs. Nugent, (Fiona Shaw) whom he tortures, torments, defames, defiles and ultimately murders. His father (Steven Rea) alternates between playing whisky bottles and trumpets; his mother (Aisling O'Sullivan ) is a fresh-from-the-straightjacket, manic-depressive, obsessive-baking-compulsive, suicide-waiting-to-happen. And it does. I'd like to buy a hyphen please, Pat.
Maybe I'm just not cut out for zany black comedies. That Francie Brady tells his own story in a bubbly, almost maniacally happy, gurgling schizophrenic lather is really more than I can stomach. Truth be known, I really can't say the writing was all that bad, considering that my poor vanilla Midwestern ears were incapable of wrenching most of the dialogue from the death grip of the thickest Irish brogues this side of a Chinese subtitled County Derry Lucky Charms commercial. Someone told me, in recommending this film, that I would find it cut from the same cinematic cloth as "A Clockwork Orange". Kubrick should consider himself offically defamed from beyond the grave. The only similarity that I could find were that they were both moovies. They should keep cutting the cinematic cloth and make a nice quilt.
I rented this pooch mostly on the strength of it's being directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview With The Vampire, Michael Collins) and with the task at hand, he did a credible job creating a consistent visual flow. Shame he didn't have a story to tell.
The Butcher Boy smells like yesterday's lunch. Buy a nice copy of Rolling Stone or The Beany Babies Collector's Digest and have a quiet read instead of renting this one.
No cows today, thanks.
