Calvary (2014)

Who payed the critics

Masterful Movie

Excellent, a Must See

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

I am trying hard to think why this film fails to be a great film, at least in my eyes. It seems to have the qualifications. It has a great cast, a powerful story, good direction and good pacing, and yet I feel strangely unenthusiastic about it. I am still unconvinced why it failed to make me like it more. I have only just watched it (half an hour ago) so maybe I am writing this review a little to soon to really guess at the answer to the above.Perhaps its the lack of subtlety in the film, which puts me off engaging with the characters. Maybe it is the strange lack of menace I had about the priest's (Brendan Gleeson) ultimate and very bloody fate. The acting by the way is fine throughout from most of the participants, except for a couple of the peripheal characters, which I found rather too quirky. Kelly Reilly however is very good as the priest's daughter, recovering from a suicide attempt; attempting to reconnect with her father. Chris O'Down is excellent at priest's unwarranted nemesis. Dylan Moran is good as he can be as an unsubtle and unsympathetic wealthy landowner. The beginning of the film does deliberately shock, where in confession an unseen and until the end unknown antagonist Chris O'Dowd, gives incredibly graphic detail about the sexual abuse he received, to the priest. I think this shocking start perhaps unbalances the film, and although the film does very well to live up to that start, it perhaps tries to hard throughout to keep that level of shock up. The ending however is genuinely gruesome, and deliberately provocative. I think it is there to try and make us reflect as society on the' indifference' people might have had to sexual abuse. The film overall also seems to make a point about how cynicism, greed and indifference allowed child abuse, by some of the priesthood in Ireland, to happen unhindered.I did find the ending moving especially when the daughter of the priest visits Chris O'Dowd in prison, presumably to accept his forgiveness. I do wish I liked this film more. It is brave, it is ambitious, and there is a who's who of Irish acting talent on display. Perhaps this film is just too pessimistic even allowing for the dark subject matter. You either have to like the characters, or its overall message, when a film is bleak in outlook. There are some lighter moments in the film especially with a fellow and incompetent priest, but there isn't much of it to go around in this film. Mind you the countryside is spectacularly brooding and beautiful. It is only a small compensation though to a well made but unfullfilling film.

I found John Michael McDonagh's previous work The Guard (2011) lukewarm and trying to be funny more times than succeeding in my eye, even with some positive critics finding the humour to their liking. His recent War on Everyone (2016) has had rather poor critic and audience appreciation. I thus watched Calvary (2014) with some reservations, although I was hoping to find why there was more praise for Brendan Gleeson acting and McDonagh's writing and directing. It now seems that McDonagh may be much better with unconventional priests than with comic cops!From the unforgettable first line of the crisp script to the last shot of the film showing a single tear, the screenplay is pure genius. It is a dark comedy, a philosophical contemplation on life, pain, loss, forgiveness and frailty. The many characters and potent actors each add their own depth to the devoted priest centrepiece who is trying to help the community, but is also very aware of the reality and the limitations of his rhetoric. I have rarely seen a movie about a religious figure be so morally ambiguous, subdued yet ambitious. IT is not preachy or propose any universal truth, but rather explores humanity as is, raw, flawed and in search for: pleasure, closure, redemption, revenge, reparation, meaning, happiness, communication and communion. Communion as in deeply sharing and beyond the Christian shenanigans of the body of Christ. The priest who sees himself as inherently trying to do "good", and not only God's work, is an endearing character how is as flawed as all the others. He drinks, swears, gets violent on occasion, exhibits greed and has done some harm, somewhat inadvertently, to his suicidal daughter. Yet, he is real and relatable. He questions the moral compass he holds himself up to and tries to be the pillar of his town and community. He sometimes fails, but gets up and tries to do better.He says there is "too much focus on sins and less on virtues". He finds a way to teach his daughter true forgiveness and love. The film is ultimately beautifully filmed, acted, directed and edited and is based on a off-beat, cynical, but surprisingly smart and sensible screenplay that delivers laughs, emotions and life reflections. Bravo Mr. McDonagh. You hit the nail... to the cross.

With such a stellar cast, I expected better, but it was as if someone came up with the idea of putting a bunch of well-known Irish actors together, throw in a couple of Americans to keep them happy, and create two-dimensional unlikable characters around a Catholic priest, but who add nothing meaningful to the story. I didn't see the point of the movie at all and felt I'd wasted my time. *spoiler* A man threatens to kill the priest, burns down the church, then kills the priest. *end spoiler* Yes, it was about child abuse by members of the Catholic church, but this movie contributed nothing at all to the debate - *spoiler* a nutter kills a good priest *end spoiler*. And if it was supposed to be a surprise at who had threatened him, it wasn't. I knew the voice of the actor right at the beginning.

Calvary is a movie with a dark humor, opening with a quote by Saint Augustine: "Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." Eternal salvation versus eternal damnation.The movie starts with Father James (Gleeson) listening a confession from a man whom we don't see and who tells a story about how he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest since he was 7 years old. The man tells Father James that he will take vengeance for his sufferings by killing a good priest (he means Father James) and gives him a week to put his affairs in order. During that week, Father James keeps trying to help his congregation while listening to their confessions and sometimes witnessing their wrongdoings, and slowly, losing his temper.McDonagh brothers are certainly very talented writers and they surely love Irish actor Brendan Gleeson who stars in John Michael McDonagh's Calvary. After watching him "In Bruge", "The Guard" and finally in "Calvary", who can argue with them? He is a brilliant and versatile actor whose screen presence is huge and undeniable. Calvary is a movie well worth watching.