THE BUTCHER BOY (1997) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Neil Jordan
Eamonn Owens, Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Ian Hart,
Sinéad O'Connor, Milo O'Shea, Brendan Gleeson
Against a backdrop of comic books and duck-and-cover, the Cuban Missile Crisis and "The Brain From Planet Arous", a troubled Irish kid with a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic dad goes around antagonizing everybody in town with an escalating campaign of cruel, antisocial behavior. A real dark comedy in which humans are constantly compared to pigs and a stocky young actor named Eamonn Owens plays the lead with such annoying conviction, you'd like to break a shovel over his head. Sinéad O'Connor's sardonic cameo as the Virgin Mary provides a glimmer of light, but the story's otherwise unrelieved pessimism could have you looking for an oven to put your head in by the time the picture's over.
Sinéad O'Connor
(1966-2023)
