Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Rúaidhrí Conroy, David Wilmot
Synopsis: After finding out his wife has just died, a middle-aged Irishman man simply known as Donnelly (Gleeson) takes the train back home where he encounters a brash (and possibly psychotic) young man (Conroy) who has a big mouth and zero filter, much to the chagrin of a couple sitting near him. Over the course of the journey, Donnelly soon learns that he’s not the only one mourning a loss and quickly finds his life changed forever after a bloody but strange twist of events that all take place in the same fateful carriage.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9w9BJXeL4E]
Clocking in at just over 27 minutes, Six Shooter was playwright Martin McDonagh’s first venture into cinema that later took him to directing two other black comedies, a genre that he is slowly defining himself as being the master of. Given his talent for writing, it’s no surprise to find the dialogue to be the cornerstone of the film’s brilliance: it’s brilliant, grim and wickedly hilarious. Conroy in the role of the obnoxious kid is obviously a terrific one, however Brendon Gleeson’s more nuanced portrayal of a quiet man suffering from a grief that he has no idea how to deal with is the film’s real anchor. Much like Seven Psychopaths, this is an unpredictable and bloody trip into the darker territories of humankind while managing to provide a bucketload of laughs along the way. The fact that it also very cleverly ties together every seemingly unrelated detail in such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion makes it endlessly rewatchable too.
Watch If You Liked: The Guard, In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths
Rating: 8/10 – An absolute gem of a short that will surely delight fans of McDonagh’s later work.
Words by Samantha King