Calvary (John McDonagh, director of The Guard)

IvaBigWun

Watched on face value this all over the fooking shop.

A rewatch where you keep in mind that apparently

everyone is dead and Brendan is the saviour might just salvage it

. Maybe.

Question:

why did Fiona visit Jack in prison at the end?

Dylan Moran might have aged a lot since his stand up DVD days but he's good in this. Second to only Brendan who needs an Oscar win for his career to date (ala Martin Scorsese) stat.

Why cant they just team Brendan up with Colin Farrell again and get Martin McDonagh to direct? Different characters of course. Now thats an Irish trio of film that worked.

Ive very mixed feelings on Calvery. 5/10 sums it up an ambitious mess.

Snake Plisken

Deleted User wrote: »

Friend who worked on this has been going on and on about what a masterpiece it so and last night he arrived with a copy of the film and insisted that I watch it. Threw it on this morning and really struggled to get through it. It's one of those films that is tonally all over the place and simply doesn't work. Bar Gleeson and Reilly, the rest of the cast were very poor though this may have been down to the writing. Much of the film felt like a sketch show without any laughs and the characters simply never felt real.

Aidan Gillen in particular was absolutely dreadful, I have no idea what he was trying to do but whatever it was he failed spectacularly. It's not just one of the worst performances ever in an Irish film but is up there with the cast of Troll 2. O'Dowd was equally poor and I couldn't take that final scene serious given how over acted it was, he can be decent in comedies but here he was out of his depth and it showed.

There's some interesting ideas in play and the sliver of a great film buried withing all the crude attempts at comedy but McDonagh seems content to take the easy path and mine the grotesque caricatures for a few easy laughs completely ignoring the far more powerful elements that the film hints at

The best thing that can be said about the film is that Gleeson turns in an extraordinary performance, he owns every moment of the film and gives a masterclass in acting. He manages to take the material and make it work for him, something his director never manages.

Yeah Aidan Gillen, every time he spoke I thought he was trying to be Viper Higgins from the Hardy Bucks!
It's an ok film, I prefer this over the over-rated The Guard, great performance from Brendan, but it's like the director just took the rest of the cast from the guard and stuck them in here! 6/10 for me!

sabat

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Question:

why did Fiona visit Jack in prison at the end?

Remember her last telephone conversation with her dad where they talked about forgiveness? I think he was telling her to forgive him in the event that he was killed.

I don't get all the hate for the gigolo character-I thought he was the best thing in it and almost gave his scenes a surreal David Lynch feel, as if a character from Last Exit to Brooklyn somehow got transported into a small Sligo town.

Shiraz 4.99

I watched it over the weekend & was sadly disappointed, all the hype & glowing reviews at release time now seem like an orchestrated frenzy which I'm glad to have missed out on.

The characters are all over accentuated in a caricature sort of way, the adulterous wife, the gay inspector, the doubting priest, the uncaring doctor, the gay prostitute with the faux New York accent . . . . only the daughter & the grieving french wife represented a real world type person.

I started looking for biblical tale which our story was meant to be analogous to but drew a blank.
The title Calvary may have represented the stations of the cross but I still couldn't tie the 2 together.
Instead all I could see was 21st century hatred for the church being magnified through these make believe characters with the only a few shreds of humanity remaining visible in the aforementioned female characters.

My largest gripe is that it all moved too slow & scenes never felt connected, it needed tighter editing & more use of a score to help heighten emotions.
A special mention must be reserved for Gleesons quality performance, he elevated the piece through his presence & understated delivery.

Overall, 2/5

Hank Scorpio

Thought this was excellent to be honest, it was a bit of a mess alright but hugely entertaining

jcsoulinger

just seen it tonight thought it was very good, I reckon the thing they come across in the dream sequence is his dog, he felt guilty for not telling his daughter that bruno had been killed.

Tipsy McSwagger

God this started out so well with a brilliant opening scene and then I heard the alter boy open his gob and I was like 'oh no please no no'. I'm 40 mins in and bored to tears. I'm only watching because of Gleeson who is carrying the film on his own. So many bad things to list but the black mechanic Simon's wooden acting and Aidan Gillen's awful performance are just two of the many many things wrong with this shyte film. They should have left out the humour and half the characters and made a straight forward serious film.

Grudaire

It's funny how much of a love it or hate it film this is.

I enjoyed watching it, it's not perfect (Aiden Gillen) and it's not as rewatchable as In Brudge/Wind that Shakes the Barley and other films.. but I really don't understand how people dislike the film so much!

Tipsy McSwagger

Does everyone in this have a fake American accent?

It's just getting worse scene by scene. The scene with

Gleeson and the daughter on the beach was horribly acted and the scene with the father grabbing his daughter away from Gleeson was just awful.

lanomist

Watched this on Sunday night, billed as a black comedy and it certainly was black.One of the most depressing films i ever saw. When the credits started to roll i just asked myself what the hell was that about. Some terrible dialog,poor acting. Surprised Brendan Gleeson took it on.

D Trent

lanomist wrote: »

Watched this on Sunday night, billed as a black comedy and it certainly was black.One of the most depressing films i ever saw. When the credits started to roll i just asked myself what the hell was that about. Some terrible dialog,poor acting. Surprised Brendan Gleeson took it on.

First of all you've spelled it wrong.

Calvary

amandaf675

Oh thank god im not the only one that it made no sense to whatsoever

DanDublin1982

Yea I thought it was pretty poor myself as did the three others I saw it with.

Brief_Lives

Interesting to read this, as from a lot of othe rpeople on the Best Irish Movie thread, it is up there as one of the best ever...
I haven´t seen it yet, but was going to soon because of the positive reviews..

MrStuffins

Brief_Lives wrote: »

Interesting to read this, as from a lot of othe rpeople on the Best Irish Movie thread, it is up there as one of the best ever...
I haven´t seen it yet, but was going to soon because of the positive reviews..

Don't bother

Grudaire

MrStuffins wrote: »

Don't bother

Ah in fairness half the reviews here like it a lot. I enjoyed it.

Just don't expect the best movie ever :pac:

Mickeroo

It's not a perfect film but it's definitely worth a watch to make your own mind up about.

No matter what anyone tells you, it's always best to experience a film for yourself and form your own opinion. Anyone even the least bit interested in Calvary or any film for that matter should sit down and watch it, no point forming an opinion based on what others have said. At least now if you watch Calvary you can go in with low expectations and it may surprise you.

Mike Litoris

I really enjoyed it too. Didn't find anything confusing in it and found it quite funny. It had a couple of strange dud scenes where the directing and acting went out the window and a bit of a lul near the middle but all in all it was an enjoyable tale.

For once Aidan Gillens accent didn't annoy the shíte out of me.

Cantremember

It's...like a left over from the 1970's or early 80's with a faint whiff of Barry Fitzgerald and a lick of modern paint. I didn't find it anyway engaging.

Nervous Wreck

Awful film carried entirely by Brendan Gleeson being fantastic. For the short time they were in it, Chris O'Dowd and Domhnall Gleeson were also fantastic.

Cantremember

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Awful film carried entirely by Brendan Gleeson being fantastic. For the short time they were in it, Chris O'Dowd and Domhnall Gleeson were also fantastic.

I suppose that's why it's called Calvary? He had to carry it. :rolleyes:

Looper007

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Awful film carried entirely by Brendan Gleeson being fantastic. For the short time they were in it, Chris O'Dowd and Domhnall Gleeson were also fantastic.

I'm not getting the hate for this film on this thread, it's not a classic by any means but it's a brave dark comedy drama that just about pulls it off, Gleeson is amazing as per usual and O' Dowd shows he can be serious too. It shocks me more cause of the Rave reviews from pretty much every critic it's been getting, I think this probably go down as critic's movie but it did do amazing in the box office here and over board. go figure.

Frank Lee Midere

I am going to say I didn't like it BUT people should watch it. There was a great movie in there. There is a great play.

To my mind it wasn't visually shot very well despite the great scenery. It's just largely pictures of people talking. And the cuts are disjointed. The only time this wasn't true was the very end and start. Otherwise the scenes cut to the priest here, and there and then there.

The acting was stagy. Not naturalistic. Gleeson and the French girl aside. The dialog was universally hostile. Nothing nice was said to the priest by anybody, except his daughter. It also had limited characters, like a stage play, everybody in the pub, or the mass was an ensemble actor. No extras for most of it, and none spoke. No conversations were normal, nearly all were about abuse or depression. No conversations about the weather. A man instead visits a priest to talk about transsexual porn and joining the army to kill.

The potential greatness was in Gleesons performance (his reaction when accosted by the father of the girl was heartbreaking) and the themes. I think thematically it's urging forgiveness. It's privileging faith over institutions. Just simple faith, like the French girl, who at least within the confines of the movie had the worst happen to her and dealt with it the best.

So it's not great but it could have been great. And that's worth a watch.

Cantremember

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

I am going to say I didn't like it BUT people should watch it. There was a great movie in there. There is a great play.

To my mind it wasn't visually shot very well despite the great scenery. It's just largely pictures of people talking. And the cuts are disjointed. The only time this wasn't true was the very end and start. Otherwise the scenes cut to the priest here, and there and then there.

The acting was stagy. Not naturalistic. Gleeson and the French girl aside. The dialog was universally hostile. Nothing nice was said to the priest by anybody, except his daughter. It also had limited characters, like a stage play, everybody in the pub, or the mass was an ensemble actor. No extras for most of it, and none spoke. No conversations were normal, nearly all were about abuse or depression. No conversations about the weather. A man instead visits a priest to talk about transsexual porn and joining the army to kill.

The potential greatness was in Gleesons performance (his reaction when accosted by the father of the girl was heartbreaking) and the themes. I think thematically it's urging forgiveness. It's privileging faith over institutions. Just simple faith, like the French girl, who at least within the confines of the movie had the worst happen to her and dealt with it the best.

So it's not great but it could have been great. And that's worth a watch.

I think thats the thing about it: there is a great movie in the script but its buried with modern stage Irishness and attempts at humour. McDonagh needs a collaborator in the writing snd the courage to hand it over to a different director.

FloatingVoter

The scenery is good. Which on a good day in that part of the world involves pointing a camera anywhere involving a wide shot and pressing record. The acting is dire - those who can actually act are visibly bored, those who can't (the child, Dylan Moran) wouldn't be allowed in a school production. The script is nonsensical. It'll sell abroad as a piece of Irish whimsy like Darby O' Gill but that's all it is.
I loved The Guard so I came at this with high hopes. But this is just a bad movie in and of itself.

Yama

I liked it mostly but if just seemed a bit like he got some great scenes, got fed up and cobbled it together to finish. Seemed disjointed almost like a sketch show. Could have done with a couple of normal characters to soften it a bit and not make the others all so OTT. I struggled with David Mc Savage and was just waiting for him to shout Quares! Whatever he was trying to do with the dog didn't work well, that and the dream needed fleshing out to me and were wasted. Didn't like the kid or Aidan Gillen, as usual. Could have done without the surfers. Loved Brendan as usual, and the daughter, and the scenery.

On second thoughts, as a story, but without Brendan Gleeson, I seriously think I would have struggled to finish it. If it was that good a story /screenplay with the same director, would you have enjoyed it with any one else you can think of carrying the whole thing?

Mizu_Ger

I watched this on Friday and didn't like it. The photography was great and the actors were mostly very good, but every character was just a caricature. Everyone has an axe to grind, a shady past or was just unpleasant.

There were no normal characters to anchor the film at all. I think this is necessary for a film set in a familiar landscape. Maybe it'd be better received by someone not familiar with the country or even as a stage play, where the overwrought characters (and staginess) would be easier to take.

It was like a mean spirited Agatha Christie whodunnit or an episode of Midsommer Murders with all the crazy villagers in tow!

I didn't like The Guard either, so I won't be in a rush to see MacDonagh's next film. I think his brother is doing a better job so far.

figges

Saw this yesterday. Brendan Gleeson in the lead is terrific - his character looked like James Robertson Justice - someone whose look demanded respect and deference in a time when the public accepted respectability without question. Brendan represents a good man trying to do a job when the institution he represents is now treated with disdain and contempt.
But even he cant help but interfere in other peoples lives as heavy handiedly as the church he represents.

The comedy is dark and some scenes are a bit clunky or even not very believable. But what it has to say about hypocrisy and the end of deference makes it worth watching.

The characters aren't all so believable but are used to good effect.
Milo is great - especially in the church scene and the brutally heartless Dr. seemed almost unbelievable but then arent the money men, religious men and others sometimes equally as cynical/depraved in their treatment of people they are supposed to serve.
A good film - not a great one - 8/10.

smallgarden

I really didn't like this film. I was bored for most of it and I've never felt so depressed after watching a movie. I wanted to turn it off but have to see what happens in a film once I start watching it. Id actually suggest people don't watch it so they can avoid the misery but each to their own.