Colm Meaney Archives – CULTURE MIX

March 13, 2025

by Carla Hay

Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott in “Bring Them Down” (Photo by Patrick Redmond/MUBI)

Directed by Chris Andrews

Some language in Irish Gaelic with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed rural area in west Ireland, the dramatic film “Bring Them Down” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.

Culture Clash: Two families get into a violent feud over possession of sheep.

Culture Audience: “Bring Them Down” will appeal mainly to people who fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramas about family feuds.

Christopher Abbott in “Bring Them Down” (Photo by Patrick Redmond/MUBI)

The ending of “Bring Them Down” is a tad underwhelming. However, this drama (about two families feuding over sheep) has good acting and an effective “two sides to every story” narrative. Sensitive viewers be warned: The movie depicts some animal cruelty scenes (staged for the movie), which might be too disturbing for some viewers.

Written and directed by Christopher Andrews, “Bring Them Down” is his feature-film directorial debut. “Bring Them Down” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. “Bring Them Down” takes place in an unnamed rural area in west Ireland, where the movie was filmed on location.

“Bring Them Down” begins by showing a flashback to 20 years ago, when Michael O’Shea (played by Christopher Abbott) is driving in a car with his mother and his teenage girlfriend Caroline (played by Grace Daly) as passengers. Caroline is in the back seat. Michael’s mother in the front seat. The mother says she’s going to stay with Michael’s aunt Christine. Michael is speeding and won’t slow down.

The movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene: It’s the aftermath of a car accident. Caroline is on the ground, with her face bloodied. She sees something horrifying and screams. Michael drives away. It’s later revealed that Mikey’s speeding caused an accident where Michael’s mother was killed, and Caroline was injured, leaving a permanent scar on Caroline’s face.

The movie then fast-forwards to the present day. Michael is a bachelor with no children and lives on his family’s sheep farm with his widower father Ray (played by Colm Meaney), who is ailing and unable to do the physical work for the farm. Michael is the human does all the work on the farm, with some help from the family sheepdog Mac. The sheep are the family’s only source of income. Michael has branded the family’s sheep by spray painting part of the sheep’s coats with streaks of blue paint.

Caroline (played by Nora-Jane Noone) is now married to a man named Gary Keeley (played by Paul Ready), who has a sheep farm business called Ryan and Sons, which has several employees. Caroline and Gary, who have been having marital problems, have a son in his 20s named Jack (played by Barry Keoghan), who seems to have some learning disabilities and who works with Gary. Considering that adult Caroline doesn’t look much older than Jack, viewers can assume that Caroline gave birth to Jack when Caroline was a teenager.

The rivalry becomes intense between Michael’s small family business and the larger Ryan and Sons. Michael notices that some of his sheep have gone missing. Jack tells Michael that he saw the sheep dead but Jack says he doesn’t know who killed the sheep. Whoever is attacking the sheep are cutting off their legs and leaving them to bleed out and die, says Jack.

Michael asks Jack to show him where these dead sheep are, Jack says that the sheep are now gone. When Michael goes to Ryan and Sons to buy new sheep, Michael sees that his branded sheep are among the flock in the sheep pens. It’s at this moment that Michael knows that Jack lied to Michael. The missing sheep weren’t murdered; they were stolen.

Michael confronts Gary about it and demands to get back his stolen sheep. Gary refuses. A physical fight almost erupts between the two men. Michael is outnumbered by Ryan and Sons employees who back up Gary in this fight. And so, Michael drives off in a huff, without the sheep. He mutters: “Fucking cunt. I’ll kill you.”

Michael has a lot of resentment toward Gary over their rival sheep businesses. But this rivalry is also personal because Gary is married to Michael’s ex-girlfriend Caroline. Early on in the movie, Caroline confides in Michael that she got a job in Cork and is moving there. It’s her way of telling Michael that she’s going to leave Gary. Other scenes in the movie show that Gary has been physically abusing Caroline.

Other characters in “Bring Them Down” are Jack’s troublemaking cousin Lee (played Aaron Heffernan) and a local merchant named Peggy (played by Susan Lynch), who pays for sheep legs. It’s not a mystery that someone from Ryan and Sons would have a motive to kill Michael’s sheep. The mystery is who is actually committing these crimes in such a cruel way? That question is answered in the movie, which also shows the perpetrator perspective.

“Bring Them Down” shows how this family feud escalates into several of Michael’s sheep getting their legs cut off and murdered. Ray demands that Michael get bloody revenge. The movie, which is told in non-chronological order, does a fairly good job of building tension in the story. “Bring Them Down” also shows how this feud is fueled by macho posturing, where the men involved in the fued feel that how they handle their feud is directly tied into their masculinity and self-worth.

Abbott (an American actor who learned Irish Gaelic for this role) gives a simmering performance as a quiet loner who keeps a lot of his feelings bottled up inside, but Michael could be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Jack is the other character who gets the most screen time. Keoghan’s performance is memorable but not groundbreaking for him, because Keoghan has made a career out of playing offbeat characters who have mental health issues.

“Bring Them Down” has an expected showdown scene, but it’s not as cathartic as some viewers might think it should be. A lot of the violence in the movie is implied and not explicit, although there are still violent scenes that are fairly graphic. “Bring Them Down” is ultimately a grim observational story about how toxic masculinity is passed down through generations and can result in feuds where there are no real winners.

MUBI released “Bring Them Down” in select U.S. cinemas on February 7, 2025. The MUBI streaming service will premiere the movie on March 28, 2025.

March 30, 2024

by Carla Hay

“In the Land of Saints and Sinners”

Directed by Robert Lorenz

Culture Representation: Taking place in Northern Ireland, the dramatic film “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” features a predominantly white group of people (with one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A seemingly mild-mannered book dealer in a small town is really undercover, with a mission to kill terrorists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Culture Audience: “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies about the IRA and are fans of star Liam Neeson and the crime dramas that he has been churning out on a regular basis.

Kerry Condon in “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is exactly the type of movie that it appears to be. Just like almost every Liam Neeson movie with gun shootouts and other violence, this crime drama (which takes place in 1974 Northern Ireland) is very predictable. The talented cast’s credible performances elevate the formulaic story. Although it’s not a very original story, “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is at least a straightforward and uncomplicated film that should satisfy people who are inclined to like this type of movie.

Directed by Robert Lorenz, “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” was written by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival. At this point in Neeson’s career, he has been in “shuffle and repeat” mode in his movies, by playing the same type of character, but with different names and locations. Neeson’s typecast role is a brooding loner with a “particular set of skills” from a shady past, and he’s usually on a mission as a vigilante, agent, assassin or other “fill-in-the blank” gun-toter, who’s undercover or has gone rogue.

In “The Land of Saints and Sinners,” Neeson has the role of Finbar Murphy, a widower who seems to be a mild-mannered book dealer in the rural coastal town of Glencolmcille, Northern Ireland. At home (where Finbar’s only companion is a cat), when Finbar is not puttering around his garden, he’s mildly flirting with his friendly widow neighbor Rita (played by Niamh Cusack) or having amiable chats with a local garda named Vincent O’Shea (played by Ciarán Hinds), who sometimes stops by for visits. Finbar and Vincent also hang out at a local pub, where they strike up an acquaintance with an African immigrant named Hasan Bello (played by Valentine Olukoga), a fiddler who is often part of the pub’s entertainment.

But trouble comes to Glencolmcille in the form of violent terrorists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is fighting for Northern Ireland to be independent from the United Kingdom. Some of these IRA terrorists are hiding out in Glencolmcille, after setting off a car bomb in Belfast. This bombing (which is shown in the beginning of the movie), killed six people, including three children.

The leader of these fugitive terrorists is Doireann McCann (played by Kerry Condon), a callous and scheming manipulator, who’s not afraid of engaging in the same brutal violence that she expects her subordinates to inflict. The other people in Doireann’s crew are loyal henchmen Curtis June (played by Desmond Eastwood), quick-tempered Conan McGrath (played by Conor MacNeill) and hulking brute Séamus McKenna (played by Seamus O’Hara), who are all farly generic characters in a movie like this one. Condon is compelling to watch as the ruthless Doireann, who is volatile enough to make this movie’s viewers curious to see what she will do next.

“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” reveals very early on in the movie that Finbar is not as mild-mannered and squeaky-clean as he would like to appear to the community. There’s a scene showing that Finbar has kidnapped an unnamed official (played by Tim Landers), who is being held in the trunk of a car. Finbar drives the car to remote area, forces the man to dig his own grave, and then shoots the man.

Later, Finbar gets paid by cash in an envelope given to him by a local police officer named Robert McQue (played by Colm Meaney), who obviously hired Finbar to commit this murder. Finbar’s motives for becoming an assassin are murky for most of the film, but it’s pretty clear that he’s gotten involved in corrupt government dealings. In other words, Finbar is a typical Neeson movie character with gray areas of morality and ethics.

But just like a typical Neeson movie character, Finbar isn’t completely hardened and has a “softer side” to him. After he gets paid by Robert, Finbar says to Robert: “There’s more to me than this. I’d like folks to see it. I could plant a garden.” Finbar adds. “Are you going to miss me?” Robert replies, “Like a hole in the head.”

Finbar shows he has a “tough but tender” heart when he befriends a local girl named Moya (played by Michelle Gleeson), who is about 8 or 9 years old and is being physically abused by her domineering single father. In addition, Finbar develops a mentor-like relationship with a local young man named Kevin Lynch (played by Jack Gleeson, no relation to Michelle Gleeson), who is restless and bored in Glencolmcille and is looking for some action. Finbar’s paternal approach to Moya and Kevin are Finbar’s way of trying the ease Finbar’s feelings of guilt of his own failings as a father.

“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” (which has very good cinematography from Tom Stern) sometimes lumbers along at a sluggish pace, but the movie has an engaging authenticity with the dialogue and characters—unlike most of Neeson’s action films that have nonsensical plots and ridiculous characters who say and do stupid things. Because “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” reveals early on that Finbar is undercover with a false identity, there’s no mystery about what his intentions are and what he will do in the inevitable showdown between Finbar and the terrorists. There isn’t a bad performance in the movie, but “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is the type of film where you know how it’s going to end within the first 15 minutes after the movie begins.

Samuel Goldwyn Films released “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” in U.S. cinemas on March 29, 2024.

Tag: Colm Meaney

Review: ‘Bring Them Down,’ starring Christopher Abbott, Barry Keoghan, Nora-Jane Noone, Paul Ready, Aaron Heffernan, Susan Lynch and Colm Meany

Review: ‘In the Land of Saints and Sinners,’ starring Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon, Jack Gleeson, Colm Meaney and Ciarán Hinds