March 13, 2025
by Carla Hay
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.
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.