Bring Them Down, a debut feature from British director Chris Andrews, offers a compelling and disturbing look at the destructive cycle of violence that can emerge from a deeply insular rural community. The film follows Michael, a stoic Irish shepherd, as he grapples with a series of animal thefts that ignite a bloody feud with a neighboring family. The film's gritty realism and intense performances delve into the complexities of masculinity, tradition, and revenge in a rapidly changing world.
Bring Them Down is a granular depiction of traditional rural life that quickly descends into a toxic cycle of violence. A revenge drama about working-class, rough-hewn men who exist within an enclosed social world is hardly new territory for a crime film. You might even say it’s familiar to the point of predictability.
But in this debut from British director Chris Andrews, the granular specifics of life as a rural Irish shepherd are brought so vividly to the screen that its story feels compelling throughout. \The film’s seemingly beleaguered hero Michael (Christopher Abbott, brooding and intense) is the sole inheritor of his father’s valuable herd of livestock, and takes to the everyday hard graft of caring for these animals with little but the help of his dog and a monosyllabic solemnity. In a flashback we learn that a car accident killed his mother, shielding his stern father (Colm Meaney) from the news that she was about to leave him. Michael keeps that information to himself: you get the sense from his gruff exchanges with his father that silence and fear rule his household. \The film is clearly dedicated to capturing a pocket of authentic, rural Irish life; in its own way, it feels of a piece with the popular indie comedy that fictionalised the origin story of its titular Belfast hip-hop band. (That film, too, places emphasis on the cultural importance of protecting Irish language and culture from so-called modernising forces that obscure a rich history.) The film captures the details of this specific old-fashioned lifestyle – and the small-then-staggering impact of a series of animal thefts on Michael’s family farm. A neighbouring shepherd family seems to be responsible, kicking off a cycle of retributive, escalating violence between the men of the families. It’s not just a few livestock, it’s a broken code of honour: a lack of solidarity in the face of a rapidly changing modern world. \This is a gnarly and fascinating thriller whose characters feel genuinely dangerous and unpredictable. Despite having a romantic history with Caroline, the matriarch of the rival family (Nora-Jane Noone, terse and excellent as a woman with torn loyalties), Michael has no compunction about what comes next. He barely hesitates when it comes to ramming their lorries off the road or threatening their rascally teenage son Jack (As things intensify, animals as well as people are drawn in to the violence. One extended scene of vandalism and animal cruelty is difficult to watch. But it proves to be the catalyst for the youngest man of the bunch to realise quite how toxic these cycles of masculine honour and revenge have become. How insular can a culture become before it starts to cannibalise itself? The fierce pride these shepherds have in their antiquated ways of life is understandable and dignified; but their eventual behaviour in trying to protect it is not. Abbott is magnificent as a man who, in a protracted struggle to preserve his father’s legacy, proves more destructive than he ever could have imagined
Thriller Drama Bring Them Down Chris Andrews Christopher Abbott Rural Ireland Revenge Violence Masculinity Tradition Film Review
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