Dir: Martin McDonagh. Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan. 15, 114 minutes.
Violence always bursts forth from the pen of Martin McDonagh. The British-Irish director and playwright has spent decades larking about in the realm of angry, impotent men – whether it’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) or In Bruges (2008). But The Banshees of Inisherin, which reunites his In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, may contain the most exquisitely McDonagh-ish image of them all. Gleeson’s Colm Doherty, without warning, has ended his friendship with Farrell’s Pádraic Súilleabháin. “I just don’t like you no more,” he states, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. When Pádraic, wounded, attempts to rebuild the bridge between them, Colm threatens to take a pair of shears to each of his fingers until he’s finally left alone. The threat is not an idle one.
