I Went Down

If not for the impenetrable accents and a gift for the blarney that begins with the multiply punning title, it would be difficult to peg Paddy Breathnach's I Went Down as the latest entry in the Irish filmmaking renaissance. Where are the alcoholics, the IRA, and the oppressive Catholic Church? This blithely noirish buddy movie forgoes the typical Ould Sod trademarks for a diverting, if contrived, shaggy-dog story about loyalty, greed, and the general absurdity of it all. Engagingly acted and adequately told, it's a diverting slice of Celtic Twi-lite.

Young Git Hynes (Peter McDonald) has returned from a bum prison rap dismayed to find that his best friend, Anto (David Wilmot), has shacked up with his girl, Sabrina (Antoine Byrne). That does not prevent him from putting out the eye of one of the goons pressuring Anto for a loan. As punishment, mob head Tom French (Tony Doyle) has Git "go down" with Bunny Kelly (Brendan Gleeson), a loser whose slash sideburns and sweet-tooth suggest a broken family, defiant ineptitude, and a sad and unsavory secret. Their assignment is to kidnap Frank Grogan (Peter Caffrey), a mobster who supposedly owes French a lot of money.

What makes this film a charmer is the down time of conversation in between bouts of slapstick violence, mountingly hilarious dialogues between the obtuse and indignant Bunny and the morose but principled Git, or between the pair of kidnappers and their wheedling but ingratiating victim. The over-complicated plot proves largely irrelevant; the characters make I Went Down a plunge worth taking.

-- Peter Keough