'Bring Them Down' Is Buoyed By Its Restraint

Recent high-profile films set in rural Ireland have showcased contrasting tones and genres: the guns-blazing, Liam Neeson-starring In the Land of Saints and Sinners was a Clint Eastwood thriller transposed to coastal Donegal (complete with a noticeably more lively Neeson), while Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-nominated The Banshees of Inisherin opted for a biting comedic tone and a philosophical look at the repressed male psyche. But regardless of their target audience, these films both include streaks of graphic violence. Saints and Sinners and Banshees each choose to either use the Irish historical backdrop as an easy excuse for thrills, where we read the bloody mutilation as an extension of the harsh, territorial conditions of living remotely, or as a microcosmic look at a specific country with a fraught, violent history.

It may be for the better that Bring Them Down chooses to exist somewhere between these two extremes. The film is violent but has many clear thematic nods to divisions, ownership, and intergenerational pain. But chiefly, it’s small in focus; it tapers any fears that we’re getting a heavy-handed allegorical piece and restricts its thrilling bloodshed to only the most intimate, misguided, and permanent outbursts. It dips its toes enough in philosophical themes to make it a noteworthy debut and shows plenty of keen thriller instincts without devolving into turgid, violent stupidity.

Writer-director Christopher Andrews’ debut film is more commendable because of what it doesn’t do, its restraint, and its small, unconventional choices. This is also its most significant flaw; if you’re not tuned into how Andrews avoids easy mistakes, you’re left with an engaging work without novelty or substance.