Review of Calvary (2014) by Peter A — 17 Jul 2014

I guess I was expecting a kind of In Bruges black comedy but instead got a film that overemphasized the current intense hatred of paedophile Catholic priests (whether or not they are guilty of anything) deteriorating to an ending that was too much Game of Thrones meets Tarantino in my view.

I'm also a bit jaded with the Philomena "forgiveness is everything" doctrine. I had worked out who the intended killer was from the very first two scenes (rather distinctive voice in the Confessional followed by words uttered taking Holy Communion with a full face view) that made the denouement disappointing, As I have spent some time in that part of Ireland, I am well aware of how constantly depressed the locals behave even without having their reason for separateness from England (their Catholicism) being seriously questioned.

Brendan Gleeson is highly believable but I struggled with Chris O"Dowd's move to a serious role and I thought that Aidan Gillen was horribly miscast as the angry atheist medico, but maybe it was too soon after seeing him as Petyr Baelish,(Littlefinger) in Game of Thrones.

The audience in my viewing were notably shocked at the end but this might have been the absolute silence during the start of the credits unlike the music we're so used to. Frankly - this is just overdone and depressing.

I seriously wondered what the locals thought of this but maybe, like me, they just headed down the pub for a Jameson's followed by a Guinness chaser like I felt like doing...