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According to the old saying, desperate times call for desperate measures. And in the indie thriller Donnybrook, a couple of desperate men go to all kinds of desperate measures in order to be able to risk their lives for the chance to win a whole lot of money.
Donnybrook follows two men as they prepare for a legendary fight with a $100,000 prize. For Jarhead Earl (Jamie Bell), the prize would mean a completely different way of life for his family—for his struggling addict wife and their two kids—so he’ll do absolutely anything to cover his entry fee and get his chance to fight. But the journey is complicated by Chainsaw Angus (Frank Grillo), a ruthless dealer who has his own plans for the Donnybrook. And when Angus’s sister, Delia (Margaret Qualley), decides that she’s had enough of her brother’s abuse, Earl gets caught in the middle.
This tense and gritty drama travels from small town to dive bar to wooded hideaway as the men make their moves to Donnybrook. The whole adventure is dark and desperate, with a setting that can sometimes be eerie and foreboding, but it’s also beautifully, deliberately filmed.
The characters, meanwhile, are messy and troubled. These men may come from the same background, but they want different things for their lives. Earl may have all of the cards stacked against him, but he has his family—and that’s all that matters to him. He simply wants a better life for his wife and kids, and he’s absolutely determined to make it happen—even if it means stealing and fighting to get there. Angus, on the other hand, is just downright evil. He cares about no one but himself, and he won’t think twice about using, threatening, or even killing people who get in his way.
While this sounds like a fascinating setup, though, the slow pacing and the dreariness of the story make it a challenging film. The characters certainly aren’t easy to love. Angus is entirely sinister, and even Earl, despite his good intentions, crosses a few too many lines. And many of the storylines here end in the most anticlimactic ways.
With its dark tension building up to a big, violent free-for-all, Donnybrook seems like it should be both dramatic and suspenseful. But viewers aren’t given much to hold onto—and the lack of memorable characters and solid conflict makes for a frustrating thriller.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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