Barry Keoghan’s gloomy modern western is a real downer

The Irish thriller Bring Them Down starts bleakly – with a car accident caused by the main character, which kills his mother and permanently scars his then girlfriend. In any case, it’s all downhill from there. A halfway outrage against a flock of sheep, perpetrated by greedy drovers, produces some of the most soul-numbing images (and sounds) in recent cinema. It’s a bloodbath in the dead of night in the fog, punctuated by bleats of primal pain.

Show this film to anyone planning to visit Ireland with a song in their heart, and they might turn white. It was written and directed by Christopher Andrews, the first time, and looks like a cool modern western. Connemara was not intended as a setting: Andrews based the story on his farming experiences in Cumbria, but took advantage of Ireland’s generous tax breaks to redesign it, with literally zero concessions to whatever the tourist board had in mind.

The usually excellent Christopher Abbott keeps the first half on edge as Michael, a controversial shepherd drawn into a bloody feud, realizes that a neighboring farm, in equally dire straits, is plotting to defraud and rob him. Abbott keeps us keenly involved, at least up to the point where things get psychotic about halfway through well and truly.