CALM WITH HORSES

There's nothing in "Calm with Horses" that we haven't seen before but seldom have we seen it done this well. It's an Irish gangster movie of sorts but it doesn't follow the rules of other gangster films or movies dealing with criminals or family feuds. Everything about it is different from its location on Ireland's West coast to its characters. Indeed, this is more a character study than a history of violence, (it's actually been renamed "The Shadow of Violence" for its US release).

Its central character is 'Arm', a dim-witted former boxer now acting as an enforcer for the Devers' family. He's a bit like Steinbeck's Lennie but with a mean streak and he's played, quite magnificently, by Cosmo Jarvis. The title, "Calm with Horses" refers to his love for the animals and their calming influence on him and it also refers to how horses are used therapeutically to calm down his autistic young son. However, things go badly wrong for Arm when one of the Devers' clan, (a terrific Barry Keoghan), orders him to kill the man who abused one of the girls in the family.

Working from a wonderfully intelligent script by Joe Murtagh, in turn adapted from a Colin Barrett short story, first-time feature director Nick Rowland never puts a foot wrong, drawing superlative performances from his largely unknown cast and dragging us into the film's central premiss like he's been doing this sort of thing for years. As I said, the material isn't new and Rowland isn't afraid to show off his influences, (mostly British gangster pictures, and we're not talking Guy Ritchie here, as well as the best of American independent cinema), but he brings to his material a freshness and a brilliance I can only marvel at. Without doubt, this is one of the best films of the year.