Savage (2009)

Watched this the other day after first hearing about it after watching the trailer for it. I found the film to be brilliantly shot by the DOP, written and directed by Brendan Muldowney. With a great lead performance by Darren Healy Hands down one of the best films I have seen in a long time and better than most of the independence films coming out of England which would have done a similar plot with a lot more unoriginal approach. A proper slow burner which takes time to build up the character of Paul Graynor who goes thought a number of different emotional states before a brutally dark, violence and realistic.

First, I wanna quote FlashCallahan with his brilliant words that really express one of the main points of this movie: "the film carries some heavy morals about getting revenge, it can eat away at you and turn you into the one thing you despise.". This key idea is extremely important for all the mankind. And another key idea I saw is that violence generates violence - not a new one for me, but shown in a very illustrative way which reflects a deadlock principle "eye for eye". In fact, the main character's transformation into "the man, who is able to stand up" is a developmental dead end to a savage, not a human. Indeed, Darren Healy's character had no self-defense skills, probably, had no experience of being attacked or hurted, unable to fight. Anyway, his "compensation" all these missed things transformed him neither to a "real man", nor to human at all. The ability to kill, to revenge, to destroy is not a true attribute for a real man, if we refer it to human being. And revenge is displayed as more powerful thing than love, because even love cannot stop revenge from its destroying a person who chose it. The director of the film mercilessly destroyed the ideas of humanism, having carried them to our society. But in this way he strongly focuses on them, highly paying attention on the impossibility of their existence on the way the main character chose. Of course, the emphasized problem is always actual and very difficult. The difficulty is about what to do with a destroyed and changed life when society gives you 2 options - to follow it and substitute human concepts in which a man is a one who is able to kill and avenge (and degrade within), or to die from such concepts. No, a choice is always exists, but there is a very delicate balance between a right choice and those given options. Although the director told nothing in this film. This movie really impressed me, though I don't like violence on the screen.Especially I admired Darren Healy's play done. It's a harsh and rough film but it can make you think much.

Paul Graynor (Darren Healy) is a press photographer who tends to catch the seedier parts of life, be it drunken fighting or trying to get glimpses in court of convicted rapists. His father is an invalid, confined to a nursing home, and while visiting, he strikes up a relationship with his dad's nurse Michelle. (Nora Jane No one) Returning home from a date, he is accosted and viciously assaulted by two thugs who not only beat him senseless, but castrate him, leaving him a physical and emotional wreck. At first afraid to leave his house, and then afraid on the street, he eventually seeks empowerment via self defense classes and sessions in the gym, where he bolsters himself with steroids he scores off some friendly Russians. Then anger kicks in, bolstered by nightly reports of violence on the news. Then alienation and rage follows, until finally, Paul's only course of action is brutal bloody revenge...Let's face it, we Irish suck at genre films. The best we can make a stab at is either meh/OK-ayyness such as Isolation, Dead Bodies, Spiderhole or Boy Eats Girl, to the simply crap, such as Crushproof or Dead Meat. Savage though tends to lean towards the more "okay" side of things. It's by no means great, with a rather halting performance from Darren Healy, and due to budgetary constraints, Director Brendan Muldowney unwisely goes the jump cut editing route which is a pet peeve of mine.On a plus side though, it looks quite decent production values wise, is well shot and manages to make my home city of Dublin look nicely grim and foreboding, although in fairness, it isn't much of a stretch to achieve this. The casting in regards to the scumbags is spot on, with them looking and sounding exactly like your average skanger/chav (white trash scum, to any American readers) one can see on my fair city streets at any given time of the day or night.Told in four segments entitled "Fear", "Control", "Anger" and "Revenge", it's more of a slow burning psychological drama as opposed to an exploitative revenge flick, which takes time to get to its payoff, so as a result won't be to everyone's tastes.However, its revenge climax is sufficiently brutal, if somewhat brief, culminating in a realistic enough looking beheading complete with stomach churning sound FX. A preceding revenge scene involving a screwdriver actually made me cringe a bit, so props to Muldowney for that one.So, in conclusion, for Ireland's first revenge film it's... okaaay. Not great, but not bad either. Worth a rental anyway. 6/10 overall.

Savage is a thought provoking and disturbing psychological thriller about a pleasant and well mannered young man who is subjected to a brutal assault in a random and unprovoked attack on the streets of Dublin.Some parts of the movie are quite violent and graphic but the main focus of the film is how he deals with the attack and the changes in his life following the assault. You will come away asking yourself just how thin is the veneer of civilisation, and just what would it take to unleash the savage in any one of us.Not what i would call a pleasant movie, but definitely not run of the mill. Well worth a watch.