Irish director Mark O’Connor’s film is a two-for-one deal. It starts out as a serious well-researched drama about an army veteran with PTSD sleeping rough in Dublin, and ends in bloody revenge, with Aidan Gillen in ultraviolent mode and gangsters drilling holes into each other’s kneecaps.
The movie is grounded by a rock solid performance from the film’s co-writer Luke McQuillan as former soldier Danny, who loses his family and home after a tour in Afghanistan. There’s a scene early on that feels horribly truthful about the day-to-day reality of being homeless: late one night, three lagered up youths humiliate Danny for a laugh – forcing him in front of the camera as they shove a coin into his hand. The shame on his face as they film him is harder to watch than the electric drills later that come later.
