Butler's Cinema Scene

Brendan Gleeson, Kelly Reilly

“CALVARY” My rating: C+ (Opening  Aug. 15 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge, the AMC Studio 30, and the Cinemark Plaza)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Not even a great-ish performance from Brendan Gleeson can disguise the confusion at the heart of “Calvary,” the new Irish movie from writer/director John Michael McDonagh.

As the film begins it seems to be setting up a Hitchcockian dilemma.  In the confessional, Father James (Gleeson) is threatened by a parishioner who as a child was repeatedly raped by his parish priest.

The perpetrator is long dead, but the victim still wants revenge. He announces (we hear his voice, but don’t see him) that in just a week he will kill Father James. The fact that James is a good priest and in no way connected to the long-ago outrage will only make for a more devastating “statement.”

James thinks he knows who this individual is.  And his superior informs him that when a priest’s life is threatened, the sanctity of the confessional is no longer an issue. James is free to go to the police.

But he doesn’t…which is only one of many improbabilities McDonagh pile atop one another.

Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd

The killer has given James a week to settle his affairs and tidy up loose ends with his parishioners — a tall order, since they constitute about as dour, mean-spirited and godless a bunch as you’ll find this side of biker bar. At times “Cavalry” (the title is a reference, of course, to Christ’s Passion) feels like a collection of one-act, two-character plays.

Among those James reaches out to are the cuckolded  local butcher (Chris O’Dowd), his sleep-around wife (Orla O’Rourke), and the sour-dispositioned African auto mechanic (Isaach De Bankole) with whom she’s currently dallying.

The local constable (Gary Lydon) is a sardonic sort and gay to boot;  he’s been hanging with an irritating young male prostitute (Owen Sharpe) who, improbably enough, talks like a gangster from a ‘30s movie.

The local E.R. doc (Aidan Gillen, best known as Littlefinger on “Game of Thrones”) is a raging cynic who loves to rub his atheism in the priest’s face. Then there’s the local rich guy (Dylan Moran), who got obscene wealthy on shady business deals, owns the biggest house for miles and whose bad behavior has driven away his wife and children.

Oh, and I didn’t mention the serial killer (Domhnall Gleeson), a former resident of the town, whom James visits in prison.

The setting is picturesque small-town Ireland. But the characters run to the cruel and repellant.

Among the few exceptions are Father James’ daughter (Kelly Reilly) — he took vows after the death of his wife — who has man troubles and a suicidal bent. There’s an aged American writer (M. Emmet Walsh) struggling to finish what will undoubtedly be his last novel, and a French vacationer (Maria-Josee Croze) whose husband is killed in a traffic mishap.

For the most part, the local citizenry are angry and dismissive of the church — McDonagh clearly blames the ongoing pedophile priest scandal for generating a backlash of furious irreverence.

Father James — often the target of insults — tries to give comfort, to be compassionate, to gently steer them in a less-destructive direction.

Good luck with that.

McDonagh’s previous film was the wonderful  “The Guard,” an offbeat buddy  movie about an unconventional Irish cop (Gleeson) and an FBI agent (Don Cheadle) taking on drug smugglers. That film was a superb mix of crime elements, humor, and character development.

By comparison, “Calvary” is dour and a tad pretentious. There are a few laughs, but of an exceedingly black variety.

Gleeson is, of course, a wonderful actor and he is able to make plausible even Father James’ determination to face his potential killer with love and without rancor.

But McDonagh goes so overboard in his depictions of the venal locals that Gleeson is fighting a losing battle — both for their souls and for the attention of the audience.

 | Robert W. Butler