{"id":1563,"date":"2019-02-13T08:33:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T08:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2019-03-04T08:34:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T08:34:56","slug":"donnybrook-review-jamie-bell-and-frank-grillo-beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other-in-poetic-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/donnybrook-review-jamie-bell-and-frank-grillo-beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other-in-poetic-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Donnybrook\u2019 Review: Jamie Bell and Frank Grillo Beat the Crap Out of Each Other in Poetic Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"indiewire\u201cDonnybrook,\u201d Tim Sutton\u2019s poetic adaptation of Frank Bill\u2019s novel, is a brutal movie with a soft touch. Orchestral music swells over the image of an empty fighting cage, and a few minutes later, the punches land hard. Sutton, whose mesmerizing docu-thriller \u201cDark Night\u201d imagined the sleepy routines leading up to a mass shooting, excels at punctuating quiet lyricism with pain. This time, however, the observational textures have been stuffed into the mold of a pulpy survival story against the backdrop of an unforgiving rural landscape. The characters hail from familiar archetypes of impoverished loners, but their world exudes a haunting sense of loss.<\/p>\n

The first time we see Jarhead Earl (a grim Jamie Bell), he\u2019s coasting along a foggy river, dwarfed by murky green hills. That image epitomizes the atmosphere of desolation to come, as Earl gears up for a cage match with a $100,000 buy-in. His family\u2019s future is on the line. \u201cIf I win,\u201d he whispers, \u201cit\u2019s more money than we ever dreamed of, and we\u2019re free.\u201d But Earl\u2019s chained to a system even when he takes charge, and as Jens Bj\u00f8rjnkjaer and Phill Mossman\u2019s moody score hits an ominous distorted note and source of his money for the fight reveals itself in a messy bank robbery. That crime, however, looks minor compared to the unflinching parade of bleak twists to come.<\/p>\n

Earl\u2019s at his wit\u2019s end, contending with a drug-addled wife and raising two small kids in a cramped trailer park. His solution: The Donnybrook, the isolated site of brutal cage fighting that pits countless men against each other in a single musty ring. An early description establishes the arena in apocalyptic terms akin to the movie\u2019s forbidding tone: \u201cHow you fight is all that counts in the Donnybrook.\u201d It\u2019s a sharp and effective metaphor for the kind of struggling American underbelly this bleak tradition of gothic fiction magnifies so well \u2014 in this kill-or-be-kill scenario, nobody really wins.<\/p>\n

Rather than lingering in Earl\u2019s quest, \u201cDonnybrook\u201d unfolds as a taut and unsettling B-movie, rounded out by a two-bit villain. While Earl makes his high-stakes calculation, the story turns to Chainsaw Angus (Frank Grillo, all harsh stares and growled line-readings), a muscular drug dealer partly responsible for getting Earl\u2019s wife hooked. With his sister Delia (a quietly menacing Margaret Qualley), Angus sets his sights on destroying Earl\u2019s life, while the pair map out a cycle of criminality along the way.<\/p>\n

This includes one of the most disturbing murder-rape scenes in modern film history, less for what it shows than how it unfolds, and a gripping showdown between Earl and a nosy police officer (James Badge Dale) in a shadowy empty parking lot. Sutton oscillates between ironic music cues and pregnant pauses, unearthing the impression of a world devoid of hope just a few shades shy of \u201cNo Country For Old Men.\u201d The difference is that, while Cormac McCarthy\u2019s work inhabits an endless cycle of chaos and violence, \u201cDonnybrook\u201d explores the profound and possibly aimless quest of one man trying to escape its clutches.<\/p>\n

While the movie develops a gripping and purposeful arc as it builds to the final act confrontation, the humorless aura has a tendency to stifle its characters\u2019 humanity by drowning them in desperation. But \u201cDonnybrook\u201d really stumbles in its climax, which delivers on the bloody expectation of Bell and Grillo beating the crap out of each other even as the violence rings hollow.<\/p>\n

Sutton\u2019s tricky balance of B-movie caricatures and gloomy expressionism doesn\u2019t always match up, but that very discordance speaks to the potency of its themes. \u201cDonnybrook\u201d depicts a bruised and tattered country, marred by misguided bouts of masculinity and overwhelmed by working-class frustrations. The men at its center think they can fight their way to a better world, but they\u2019re too blinded by their fierce commitment to see that they\u2019ve already destroyed it.<\/p>\n

Grade: B
\nIFC Films releases \u201cDonnybrook\u201d in select theaters on Friday, February 15, and on VOD on Friday, February 22.<\/p>\n

View this article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDonnybrook,\u201d Tim Sutton\u2019s poetic adaptation of Frank Bill\u2019s novel, is a brutal movie with a soft touch. Orchestral music swells over the image of an empty fighting cage, and a few minutes later, the punches land hard. Sutton, whose mesmerizing docu-thriller \u201cDark Night\u201d imagined the sleepy routines leading up to a mass shooting, excels at
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