Bring Them Down (2025) Brilliant and Disturbing Irish thriller from Christopher Andrews
“I want you to bring me his fucking head”
A European co-production but largely an Irish affair produced by Screen Ireland, RTE, UK Global Screen Fund and directed in his feature debut by Christopher Andrews, following a fade to black we immediately track a solitary car on a dusty, single track farm road through a piercing early morning sun and now inside the car to a lady in the passenger seat repeatedly trying to get the attention of a continually unseen driver referred to as “Mikey”. Although the driver is never seen, simple camera angles cut back and forth between the concerned lady in the passenger seat and a much younger and smiling female passenger in the rear of the car as Mikey selects a favourite song on the car’s stereo system. “Doesn’t this depress you?” asks the older of the two lady passengers in the front of the car as the camera cuts once more to the younger passenger in the back who finds both his choice of song and the light hearted ribbing he’s receiving from the older lady passenger mildly amusing. The volume on the song increases before quickly being muted altogether and everyone’s lives inside the car are now about to change forever.
The older lady in the passenger seat announces that she’s moving and going to live elsewhere and away from both Mikey and the farm. Again forever unseen, Mikey now dangerously accelerates the speed of the car as each lady screams for him to “slow down” and the younger passenger in the rear of the car is no longer wearing a broad smile but a look of terrified horror. “You can come visit me” assures the older lady in the passenger seat as she confirms to Mikey that her decision has nothing to do with him but she has to reluctantly leave as “He terrifies me”. We now cut to a dashboard camera peering through the windscreen of the speeding car but not through early morning sunshine now but through the deep shadows cast by the trees lining this tight and dusty single track road as Mikey accelerates faster and faster. Both ladies scream their horror at how fast Mikey is driving as the older lady shouts at him “Mikey. What are you doing? Slow down” to the rear passenger, leaning forward and tapping him on the shoulder as she implores him to slow down. “I’m leaving him not you, Michael” screams the front seat passenger as we cut again to the rear passenger shouting “You’re scaring me, Mikey” before finally “MICHAEL. STOP”.
We cut to a single white cross on the side of the road before a brief cut to Mikey and a longer shot of the rear passenger, gasping for breath and a large, bloodied wound from her forehead as she emits a blood curdling scream.
Present day, we find “Michael” (Christopher Abbott) bathed in darkened shadows and behind the wheel once more as he starts his truck. Barely visible as the overhanging foliage casts heavy streaks of shadow all around him, he is equally difficult to see as we cut immediately to a dark blue evening sky streaked with lightning and accompanying thunder as “BRING THEM DOWN” is presented in a capitalised and yellow font along with the film’s opening credits. As these continue, Michael, for so long a distant figure in the darkness and only seen via the headlight mounted on his cap, walks toward the camera in the company of his faithful sheepdog “Mac” before discovering a farm gate lies unhinged and destroyed on the ground. Turning on the light in the barn he makes a rudimentary check to see that nothing has been stolen before settling Mac in his kennel for the night and returning home to the farmhouse.
Entering the kitchen to the ill tempered grumbles of his wheelchair bound father “Ray” (Colm Meaney) Michael makes a jam sandwich as his father complains at his late arrival home and the assistance he requires of him to help him into bed. Their distant conversation is conducted entirely in Gaelic (an often constant of the film) as Michael announces “Our Back Gate’s fucked” before Ray dumps a large milk bottle full of urine on the kitchen table as a radio report continues in the background with news of the recent storms that have swept through the country. We cut immediately to an early morning walk for Michael and Mac as he frees a distressed sheep trapped by barbwire before the first of many glorious shots of the Irish countryside. A stormy day lies ahead, both from the overhead conditions and life on the farm, but first Mac rounds up any errant sheep from the herd before Michael returns home to an immediately ringing telephone and after finally answering the call, a father angrily throwing the telephone across the kitchen with news neither of them wish to hear or believe.
“Get me out this fucking chair” shouts Ray, before angrily continuing “Those bastards we share a hill with found two rams dead on their land. Ours”. Endeavouring to calm his father down, Michael reluctantly agrees to drive to their neighbours on the adjacent farm and on arrival, receives the first smiles of the film from “Caroline” (Nora-Jane Noone) who immediately greets him with a cheerful “You’re looking well”. Whilst appreciative of the complimentary greeting, Michael is anxious to discuss the matter of the two dead rams with her husband Gary and in his absence from the farm, repeatedly calls for her son “Jack” (Barry Keoghan) to return to the farm. With Jack slow to respond, an awkward air hangs above their conversation now with Caroline, a scar running the length of her face, announcing “Tis strange that you’re here” before adding with a smile “Where does the time go?” as she shouts aloud yet again for her son to return to the farm. More smiles now as Caroline confirms she’s got a new job in Cork with cuts and knowing glances between both Caroline and Michael acknowledging this will mean a move away from the farm but before this can be discussed any further, Jack finally returns. A childlike young man, Jack leans on the open window of Michael’s truck as his childish “tells” give him away as a liar as he fumbles, recklessly and uncaringly, through a litany of lies regarding the two rams. Because of disease, he tells both Michael and his mother that he’s dumped them in the slurry and “Where there’s livestock there’s dead stock”. Michael has never taken his eyes away from the kid and clearly doesn’t believe a word he’s said as Jack now ambles awkwardly away.
“I’ll talk to him” Caroline assures Michael, before looking back in his direction as he drives away…
There you have the opening 14 minutes of Christopher Andrews’ debut feature length film Bring Them Down and all I’ll add by way of a conclusion to this spoiler free appraisal is that I watched this on a whim and was utterly transfixed by the fractured, non-linear tale being told. A tale of loss and grief amid a bitter and bloody feud is looped around a film of two halves (split by a fade to black) and whilst the first half of the film concentrates on the warring families, Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, Saltburn, The Banshees of Inisherin) brilliantly dominates the second half as the film veers dangerously to going over the edge but never does and in a calendar year whereby I’ve watched a number of debut films, Bring Them Down ranks very highly among them.
Treat yourself sometime.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon