The great Irish character actor Brendan Gleeson was a mere lad — a slip of a thing — when he “burst” on the cinema scene in the mid-’90s.
Ah, who’re we kidding? He was a great, grand and jolly galoot of 30 years with sideburns long enough to make Elvis weep when he took over “I Went Down,” an Irish action comedy that prefigured the roles that would forever fix his image in the public eye.
John Boorman’s mob drama “The General” would “make” Gleeson’s big screen reputation. He’d played Irish revolutionary Michael Collins for Irish TV and had a supporting role in the Liam Neeson star big screen vehicle “Michael Collins.” But Gleeson had stolen a scene or two from that mug Mel Gibson in “Braveheart,” and “I Went Down” would very much cement the big, burly redhead with range’s sweet spot.
As the 2000s would prove, from “In Bruges,” “The Guard” to “The Banshees of Inishirin” and a few turns as Mad Eye Moody in “Harry Potter” pictures, nobody’s better at big and menacing, amused and amusing than Gleeson.
“I Went Down” is a gangland road comedy/buddy picture set in Ireland, a wisecracks-and-violence tale that prefigured the sorts of movies that Guy Ritchie would be making in the UK two years later starting with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” It’s not as violent, jumpy and antic as anything Ritchie made. Slack pacing and a general cheerfulness in its thuggery marked it as distinctly Irish. And if nobody heard much from director Paddy Breathnach afterwards, that wasn’t just because most couldn’t pronounce his name.
But the droll tone and the inspired casting of Gleeson as a lazy, reluctant hunk of mob muscle recommends this 1996 Dublin to Cork odyssey.
Peter McDonald (“The Batman,” TV’s “The Penguin”) is the unfortunately-named Git Hynes, nobody’s idea of a hardened criminal but just finishing up a prison sentence he accepted out of duty.
His girl (Antoine Byrne) is determined to convince him to accept that she’s moved on — to his best mate, Anto (David Wilmot). So that’s just what Git does — accept it.
And as Anto’s in hock to a local mobster Tom French (Tony Doyle), Git is obliged to defend him from French’s goons. It’s just that poking out a goon’s eye puts him in French’s debt.
That’s how Git comes to be sent south to Cork to meet with a “friendly face” who’ll help put French in touch with a bloke named Frank who also has some sort of obligation to the mobster. Nothing about this task proves easy, as the big mug Bunny Kelly, played by Gleeson, will be Git’s minder-driver-enforcer on the quest.
Bunny dresses the part — oversized black leather sports coat, ugly shades and epic sideburns, with a pair of white two-tone loafers he’s curiously fond of. The cars he drives are mostly beaters, and as he can’t even get the gas cap open, it’s obvious he’s stealing them.
Bunny’s the unsentimental sort. In this world, anybody’s “word’s no good. ‘Truth’s’ not important.” Don’t overthink this, he advises. Don’t listen to the guy they pick up and stuff in the trunk. “Just a job.”
You take Bunny seriously even though too much about him says not to, starting with his name. Sure, he has a revolver. He’ll even show you how to work the thing, load it with bullets and such. But he’ll charge you for every shot you fire.
“You’ll know when I’m jokin’,” he cracks. “Cuz it’ll be REALLY funny.”
The unlikely duo misses meetings and misreads signals. This earns Git a busted nose and forces Bunny to do what he never does — put down the paperback he’s always reading and question “the job” and listen, however reluctantly, to the mark (Peter Caffrey) they pick up, or rather fetch from others holding him hostage.
And shots are fired, usually to amusing effect.
Connor McPherson’s script doesn’t reinvent the wheel, or the mob-buddy/road comedy. Breathnach’s direction is unfussy even as he shows few signs of knowing when to get out of his own way. This material is a 90 minute movie in a 107 minute package.
And yet it works and it plays, largely thanks to its garulous co-star. For Gleeson, a die was cast.
He continues to be terrific in dramas — winning an Emmy for playing Churchill (“Into the Storm”), adding heft and pathos to “28 Days Later,” gravitas to King Duncan in the Denzel/McDormand/Joel Coen “Tragedy of Macbeth” and star in Stephen King’s “Mr. Mercedes.”
But his Oscar nomination came from “The Banshees of Inishirin,” and his work with Martin McDonagh and his brother John Michael McDonagh (“The Guard,” “Calvary”) showed off not just Gleeson’s range, but his ability to find wry fun in even the most deathly serious characters and turn that Irish brogue loose on lines made all the more amusing for the way he says them.
Rating: R, violence, sex, nudity, profanity
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Peter McDonald, Antoine Byrne, Tony Doyle, David Wilmot and Peter Caffrey.
Credits: Directed by Paddy Breathnach, scripted by Connor McPherson. A BBC Films/Lionsgate release on Tubi, other streamers.
Running time: 1:47