Bring Them Down Review: Lambs to Slaughter

Christoper Andrews’ directorial debut Bring Them Down is one-note but tense and well-made, with fiery turns from Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan.

It’s a given that their efforts are not worth the pain they inflict on themselves and those around them, but even if the leanness of the storytelling borders on nihilism, Andrews’ film still crackles with tension, and benefits from the commitment of his cast and crew.

Bring Them Down tells the story of Michael (Christopher Abbott, boasting arguably the best non-native onscreen Irish accent since Julie Walters in Brooklyn). Raising a flock of sheep in a windswept landscape, Michael is hemmed in by memories and misery. His ailing father Ray (Colm Meaney) barks orders from his fireside, leaving Michael with no way out of this life. Meanwhile, Michael’s ex-girlfriend Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone) exchanges chat and glances with him as brief respite from her own miseries, namely her marriage to neighbouring farmer Gary (Paul Ready). A prologue establishes how their relationship ended, as well as the tragic backstory that gives Michael a crippling helping of guilt on top of his responsibilities, which combine to keep him in situ.

Abbott works best at delivering simmering tension beneath a calm but fragile exterior, and is excellent in the lead. The film is partly told in Gaelic, and his command of the brogue is commendable. The prologue also sets the tone for the rest of the film, one from which it rarely strays, for better or worse. When Michael gets a call to say that two of his rams have been found dead on Gary’s land, it is just the start of a series of events that lead to the two farms being dragged down by one another. 

Michael has to go up against Gary and Caroline’s son Jack (Barry Keoghan), and the two men inflict all manner of intimidation, property damage, and violence (against both man and beast) on each other. Bring Them Down does not say anything new in its tale of paternal sins being passed on to sons. Cycles of violence and brooding resentment drive many a revenge tale; it’s the same frustrated and isolated anger that got Richard Harris his greatest acclaim in The Field.

The problem for Andrews is that he’s unable to find any new twist on this narrative to relieve its persistent miserabilist tone. Its one narrative conceit sees the film switch from Michael’s narrative to Jack’s, retelling events from the start all over again. This structural gambit reveals a little more backstory, but not enough to justify the ongoing parade of angst towards destruction. That said, it does afford Keoghan plenty of room to deliver another riveting portrait of loneliness with no way to process it, even if he’s cast a little too old as a character that could be sired by Abbott or Noone’s generation.

As Bring Them Down rattles along, and the two storylines dovetail towards the climax, it becomes clear that Andrews isn’t intending any big surprises. His script is populated by people doomed to suffer, and the only variation is how much suffering they will endure. For all its miseries, though, Andrews ensures his feature debut will serve him well as a calling card. There is both precision and dynamism in his camera, as if it can’t look away from the persistent threat of violence. DoP Nick Cooke finds ragged beauty in the landscapes of County Wicklow, with a sunset violet hue hovering over the bogs like so much menace. Abbott and Keoghan scramble over the grassy humps and hollows with conviction, but their destination is clearly in sight long before the end. Revelations come to light too soon, as if Andrews is afraid his filmmaking might not carry the story to the end.

In a landscape populated by sacrificial lambs, it’s clear that no-one in Bring Them Down will find any kind of respite in their isolated (if undeniably picturesque) part of the world. Andrews demands a lot from his characters (and in turn, from the audience) by never offering any respite from the gloom that envelops the film. The likes of Kneecap and The Quiet Girl show that Irish film is determined to be more than grounded miserabilism. Bring Them Down is too tense and confidently made to be just that but, like its lead characters, it never gets away from its own depressive tendencies either.

Bring Them Down will be released cinemas in the UK & Ireland and in US theaters from February 7, 2025.