Get Down

reviewed Mon, 29 Jun 1998 23:22:53 EDT

I've said it before and I'll say it again: You just can't beat a free movie. No matter if the woman next to you takes off her shoes and sticks her bare foot into your lap -- it's free! And when it's a good movie, it's just that much better (and that much easier to ignore old-lady feet). This was a funny, unpretentious, sometimes dark, Irish film called I Went Down, a phrase which means many things across the course of the movie.

It's about Git (Peter McDonald), a quiet young man just out of prison, who, in trying to save his best friend (who's stolen his girl) from a local gangster, winds up having to run an errand for the gangster, accompanied by Bunny (Brendan Gleeson), another ex-con who owes a debt to the crime boss. They encounter a series of mishaps (some wacky, some not) and end up in the midst of much more massive wrongdoing than they expected.

Though the movie is kind of slow, it's generally charming and engaging. It's tough to figure out the accents at first (even when you get the hang of it, you'll get thrown every now and then by a new inflection), but the dialogue is funny and sharp. The two lead actors are both good; I found Git particularly charming, but that was probably because of those adorable sad eyes. One thing I liked about the movie that others may not was that it took its time explaining things -- for instance, a Sonny Mulligan is mentioned throughout the film, but you never know who he is till nearly the end. I like a movie that doesn't spell everything out for the audience, that carefully doles out bits and pieces of the puzzle.

I recommend it as a charming little film that doesn't aim too high and hits the mark.

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