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The Butcher Boy

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If such a thing may even be said, this may well be the funniest movie ever to be made about childhood schizophrenia. I don't know if I completely buy into other reviewers' interpretations of political subtext. I don't know that the world that eventually gets the best of the Incredible Francie Brady is even a uniquely Irish one- and what is probably the most chilling aspect of this movie is how "normal" life tends to converge with Francie's deepening insanity: the Bay of Pigs (clever story-overlap, huh?), religious mania, science fiction / cold war paranoia. These are the things that lurk in the world that make us look at ourselves and ask, "Just how sane are we, really?"
Eventually, as everything good in his life cuts away from underneath him, Francie (Eamonn Owens, in what might be the best performance by a young actor that I can recall) ricochets back and forth between pathetic and frightening. This film is one of those that is painful to watch, and we are inclined, like Francie, to start to dream of how it would only take one bomb to wipe out all the aliens and communists and Mrs. Nugents.
After we've been gleefully horrified and blasphemously assulted, the only real break from the movies' grim nihilism comes at the very end, where the only word of comfort is that God has a special place in his heart for the likes of Francie Brady.

I hope I don't use the term loosely, and at the risk of hyperbole and excessive adjective use, but this is a great movie. Hilarious and heartbreaking. It's one of the smartest, most fascinating and moving pictures I've seen. I can't think of a better made picture or a more accurate, poignant take on both childhood and dementia. Dark but not black, and neither cynical nor a shallow emotionally manipulating tear-jerker, which may account for this pitch-perfect adaptation never being heard of upon release in theaters. The young man playing the lead is stunning, the other actors excellent, the sets, costumes, and direction dead on. I later took the book out of the library, so blown away was I. This is, to trot out an old word, art.

That being said, release on DVD!

"The Butcher Boy" is a great experience for those who enjoy complex stories with multidimensional characters. Definitely this movie is not for all tastes, so fans of Adam Sandler's movies, fans of Ben Affleck's movies, or fans of "American Pie", please step aside, go away, we don't want that your brain suffers by giving it something to think about. The rest of us let's enjoy "The Butcher Boy".

Francie is a fascinating character: the first minutes he gives the impression that he is just an annoying brat, but eventually we can see that this kid is a very perturbed person, whose parents are an ugly mess, there are clear signs of madness in his attitude, and his huge imagination frequently carries him a lot of issues.

Eamonn Owens masterfully plays Francie, the average Hollywood child actor could have taken the story and the movie to doom.

"The Butcher Boy" is perhaps the best movie made by Neil Jordan so far, or at least his most daring film. Definitely "The Butcher Boy" deserves an opportunity, not all the movies should be made following the blockbusters rules.

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"Other people have a nationality, the Irish and the Jews have a psychosis." Brendan Behan

It has been a very long time since I've come upon a neophyte actor the likes of Eamonn Owens, who plays Francie Brady in this movie-with-a-subtext. Owens fits the role so perfectly that the character and the actor seem inseparable -- which may limit any future roles offered to the newcomer. Despite the darker side of Francie Brady that emerges during the story, Eamonn Owens captures all the boyhood mystery, games, hopes and dreams of young boys growing up in humble circumstances in the streets and schools of the 20th Century: the comradeship, the dependency upon close boyhood friends, the shared adventures, the clubhouse, the rituals, and the secrets. Cross your heart, turn around and spit on the ground, blood brothers, friends forever,etc.; they are all quite real. This is the in-born source, the genetic grounding, the outward manifestation of our human tribalism. You cannot get the factor of "tribal instincts" out of the human equation.

The actors and the characters in this movie are all Caucasian Europeans , just as one would expect Ireland's Irishmen and Irishwomen to be in 1962 -- at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is refreshing to see an all White cast, which not only reflects the reality of the subject, but it ignores the dictates of censorship and the limitations placed on free artistic expression by the misguided propagandists of political correctness, who have established a color-coded quota system.

Based on the novel by Patrick McCabe, this is the story of a young boy who loses his dysfunctional family members one by one, only to face losing his best friend, his boyhood dreams, his future, and his security. A prepubescent Francie Brady runs amuck on the streets of an Irish city after the death of his parents, who had apprenticed him to a pig-butcher. Francie comes to identify, Mrs. Nugent, the mother of a nerdy playmate, and Mrs. Nugent's "English ways," as the cause of all his troubles. This conclusion of Francie's is not at all surprising, since "English ways" have indeed been the affliction of the Irish people for hundreds of years, as they struggled to drive the meddling English armies of occupation out of Ireland.

There is not a single word of dialogue that speaks of the struggle against the English, or the efforts of the Irish Republican Army ("IRA") to create an Irish republic, but that message is in the movie. It is the subtext.

Stephen Rea -- who also acted in "Michael Collins" by the same director: Neil Jordan -- plays Francie Brady's father, and also plays Francie as an adult. Sinead O'Connor -- a legend in her own mind -- makes an appearance playing no less a personage than Mary, Mother-of-God. Certainly a case of an actress playing against type, and very probably the best joke in the film.

The director, Neil Jordan, has created an unusual comedic vehicle in which it seems the narrator has all the good lines; and with Sinead O'Connor playing the Mother of God, the Devil has all the good tunes. But Francie, or "the incredible Francie Brady" as he calls himself, doesn't do so badly at all. He is a witty little butcher boy, and he is quite good at his apprenticed trade.

The story of Francie Brady and his reactions to the English-influenced Mrs. Nugent is allegorical. Francie, himself, represents the Irish people, and his actions represent the people's struggle against the harsh overlordship of England and its empire, from which the Irish want to be free at any cost. The traumatic effects of the breakup of Francie's friendship with Joe, speak to the dislocation and separation Irish families caused by the years of war, as well as the separation of the northern counties from the Irish Nation. That is the under-story in this film: English oppression v. the Irish people's struggle for a place, a nation, a republic of their own.

When Francie practices his apprenticed trade upon the hated Mrs. Nugent, to free himself from her English meddling, the act is violent, bloody and thorough. It is easily read as the Irish people rising against 700 years of English tyranny.

There are several ways to look at this movie and the book upon which it is based. Any way you look at it, this movie is well acted and interesting. The amazing Francie Brady certainly is.

One of the most horrible films I have ever seen. I didn't expect to be disapointed by such a wonderful director and set of actors; but the story is simply gross.

I'm sure the kid actor is very talented but I hated the character he plays. Everyone is repulsive in their own special way.

Don't watch this film while eating anything - or if you want to keep your food down in your stomach.

Francie Brady is an exuberant, rambunctious gay preteen living in Cold War Ireland, with an abusive father, an insane mother, and neighbors and well-wishers with various nasty hidden motives. His one ray of hope is his boyfriend, Joe Purcell, but then Joe leaves him for another boy (a gift of goldfish becomes the emblem of betrayal), and Francie's descent into madness begins. It's an exuberant descent into madness, too, with violence that always comes as a shock, making the film fascinating but difficult to watch, more important than enjoyable.

"The Butcher Boy" is a horrifying, disturbing, jarring film, and one so utterly fascinating that I couldn't stop watching it as much as it upset me. Eamonn Owens plays Francie Brady, a lower class Irish kid in the early 1960's who comes from a classically dysfunctional family. His father (Stephen Rea) is a mentally and physically abusive drunk and his mother is suicidal. Young Francie has to shoulder the responsibility for keeping this car wreck together. When a tragedy occurs and his father blames him for it, his already raging anger is set loose in a steadily escalating series of social transgressions that lead to a terrible climax, wherein he takes his revenge on the woman he irrationally blames for all of his problems.

Owens, who could must have been in his early teens when the film was made, is incredible as Francie. He is not a pleasant boy to be around, yet I found Owens' performance so full of exuberance and pathos that I came to care about Francie. Owens definitely needs to keep in acting. He has tremendous talent.

Tying the film together is the outstanding narration of Stephen Rea as the adult Francie, who takes us through his unusual life as he recounts what led to his being incarcerated in the "Garage" (an asylum) for a number of years. Rea is absolutely cheeky in his narration and it works perfectly. He is by turns cynical, flip, self-deprecating, and audacious. I saw this film last week and still find myself wanting to say, "And the Francie Brady Not a Bad...Award goes to!" just as Rea does throughout the film. I could listen to Rea talk for hours and never cease being amazed and enchanted.

Neil Jordan is an innovative, daring film maker. If you have the stomach for it, get "The Butcher Boy". You'll never forget it.

Neil Jordan's difficult-to-watch story about the all-too-common effects of violence on children. Francie Brady is growing up in Carney, Ireland, and enters adolence during the Cold War. He watches the mushroom clouds on the telie and hates the Commies. His drunk of a father, a talented musician who works in a slaughter house, beats both Francie and his mother. Francie bullies a school mate and the boy's mother calls him a pig. The audience gets to watch as these influences steadily take hold of Francie's psyche.

Eamon Owens (couldn't have been more than 15 yo when the movie was being filmed) who plays Francie, is so good, it's scary!

When will this masterpiece finally be released on DVD? When!? How can 'Monkeybone' be on DVD and not 'Butcher Boy'? This is the best damn 'kid gone psycho' movie since Children of the Corn. Actually, that's a misnomer. This is simply the most provocative, well-written, and well-photographed cold-war parable ever made. Put it out on DVD, Mrs. Nugent, or pay the toll!

This film, especially toward the end, reminded me very much of Heavenly Creatures, my favorite movie. Like Heavenly Creatures, this is the tale of a lower-class protagonist living in a commonwealth of the United Kingdom in the 1950s, who begins as an overall normal kid with a slight mischievous streak who, because of uncaring authorities, a strong friendship that grows out of hand, and a few unfortunate instances of fate, develops into a horrifically, yet understandably, amoral character. Also like Heavenly Creatures, this film has its darkly comic moments, most of them irreverent. The highpoint of these, in this film, is Sinead O'Connor as the Virgin Mary telling Francie not to worry "for f---'s sake." And like Heavenly Creatures this film culminates with an act of violence so abhorrent and seemingly sensible you find yourself hating the character for doing it and hating yourself for, on some level, sympathizing with the character and wondering if you yourself wouldn't be doing the same thing in the same situation.

The cast, primary and supporting, is very good, with the best child acting I've ever seen. Some directors are lucky to get a few good child actors in a film, with the rest varying from horrid to a little subpar, but Niel Jordan manages to get excellent performances from kids playing roles in all parts of the spectrum, from Phillip to Joe to Francie. Maybe it's just an Irish thing. Mrs. Nugent rises from a caricature to being a genuinely remorseful woman, and Jordan allows the audience to catch fleeting moments of that while still seeing her from Francie's biased, if understanbly so, viewpoint. Jordan also deals with symbolism and imagery very skillfully and subtly, without being heavy-handed, as many others would be tempted to do when given a combination of comic books, the Cold War, butchered Pigs, the lower-class, AND aliens!

Overall a very enjoyable film, but prepare yourself for jump scenes and some intense violence.