Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan argue over sheep in Christopher Andrews’ thriller. Here’s our Bring Them Down review.
Christopher Abbott has had a busy few months with recent appearances in Kraven The Hunter and Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man. Writer-director Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down is a much smaller film than those, but has more power than the two aforementioned movies combined. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I watched it.
Abbott plays Michael, the last son of an Irish shepherding family. He’s weighed down by a car accident which killed his mother and injured his former girlfriend. He also looks after his ailing father. There’s constant competition and animosity between Michael’s family and the family next door, and when some of Michael’s sheep go missing and are found with their legs cut off, things quickly get out of hand.
Barry Keoghan plays Jack, the son of the neighbouring family, and as the film progresses, the similarities between Michael and Jack become apparent, despite the two men butting heads. Both are stuck in a way of life they had no say in choosing and are unable to break free of their everyday life and its demands.
Be warned: Bring Them Down is uncomfortably grim. There’s nothing in it that you wouldn’t see in a semi-decent horror, but Andrews’ sheer unwillingness to downplay any of the inherent violence of the story. It’s unpleasant to watch, but it feels necessary, like a challenge to keep watching because you need to believe that these people are living through it.
Bring Them Down was originally supposed to star Paul Mescal and Tom Burke in the lead roles before they were replaced by Abbott and Keoghan after some delays. We’ll never know what Bring Them Down with a different pairing, but with Abbott and Keoghan as the leads, it’s a terrific film. At first, Abbott is a strange choice for a role that requires him to speak not just with an Irish accent but in Irish, but the actor brings his signature intensity to Michael.
We’re constantly questioning whether we should be rooting for Michael and whether he’s the hero or the villain. Violence comes quickly and easy for our tortured lead, but so does the immediate regret that follows. It’s fascinating to watch, even as Andrews, making his feature debut, tests our limit of watching something so relentlessly depressing.
Keoghan proves to be more than a match for Abbott. Just when you think Jack is the film’s villain, along with his father Gary (Paul Ready), Andrews boldly changes things up and offers an alternative perspective. Even if we don’t agree with Jack’s actions, we do come to understand his motivations.
Nora-Jane Noone and Colm Meaney are compelling in supporting roles which give them less to work with than actors their calibre deserve. The film’s focus is so tightly on Jack and Michael that the characters around them come off as a bit thin, but they’re crucial in giving us more perspective on our leads.
The ending also feels like it goes a bit too far, asking us to suspend a little too much of our disbelief. Bring Them Down goes from a stone-cold thriller to almost a horror film and the tonal change is abrupt and jarring, but if you made it that far, what’s one more surprise? The film’s relentless violence and unpleasantness might be too much to get through, but if you make it, the result is a complex, thought-provoking thriller.
Bring Them Down is in UK cinemas 7th February
