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.


Another Masterpiece!   November 30, 1999
 13 out of 14 found this review helpful

Slow moving plot? Oh, sure, it would be nice if abused children like Francie wasted no time and got straight to acting on their schizophrenic visions by the time they were, say, two or three years old. But let's face it, you have to be of a certain height to commit such acts, and at three he just would not have been tall enough.

The Butcher Boy is yet another masterpiece by Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan of The Crying Game fame. After seeing the movie four times, I went out to get Patrick Mc Cabe's book, but there were no copies left, so I can't discern which aspects of the movie were solely Jordan's vision and which were the work of Mc Cabe.

However, it is clear that the feeling throughout the movie is the work of Jordan. The surreal, cartoon-like ambience and the dark, macabre humor amount to nothing less than a brilliant way to present such otherwise deeply depressing material. And if it had been presented in an ordinary way, as the story of a disturbed child with frightful, self-absorbed parents who eventually snaps, it might not have amounted to much more than a Lifetime TV movie-and they're a dime a dozen, a commonness guaranteed to dilute the impact of such a tragic tale.

I originally rented the movie for two reasons-because it's Neil Jordan, and to stare at gorgeous Stephen Rea (can't blame me there), possibly the only actor on earth who needs not say a single word to convey volumes of feeling, and whose spoken word is a symphony of sound. The benefit is that I got to see some things the second and third and even fourth times that I never saw the first time through. Like for instance, when Francie's mother is about to hang herself, and she asks Francie if he'd ever let her down. Is this also a little joke about letting her down from the noose had she gone through with it? Can he never make the right choice (he answered no)?

Interspersed throughout the film are little breaks of comic relief that help you deal with the sad material-little stabs at some of our favorite targets like the Catholic Church, the priesthood, the English sensibilities, that framed portrait of JFK that my grandmother too had hanging in every room, the influence of TV....

And by the way, Eamonn Owens is amazing as Francie.

Great movie. Just see it.


AH, THE INCREDIBLE FRANCIE BRADY...   June 12, 2001
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

This brilliant film was evidently not seen by many when it played in theatres -- and that's a shame. Ugly at times, unsettling at most, powerful always, it gives us an unforgettable look into the mind of a young pre-teen Irish boy going mad, reacting to the world around him as it falls apart before his eyes.

Francie Brady has suffered -- his mother is depressed and suicidal, his father is an abusive alcoholic, his best friend's mother is adept at putting on airs and looking down her nose at most of her neighbors -- and, after getting into trouble enough times to warrant being placed in a special school, Francie becomes the 'favorite' of one of the priests there, who seems to enjoy dressing the boy up in wigs and frocks. Who wouldn't step off the curb after all of this? The boy's ensuing fantasies and increasingly horrific acts of violence and retribution become understandable, if not justified in the viewer's eyes.

Neil Jordan's direction is right on target -- the device of the adult Francie narrating the story in a voice-over, completely overbearing in other films, is perfectly done here. The screenplay (by Jordan and Patrick McCabe) is excellent as well, closely following both the body and spirit of McCabe's incredible novel. McCabe even has a bit part in the film, as Francie's intermittent partner-in-mischief Jimmy the Skite. Stephen Rea is in fine form as Francie's sotted da, and Fiona Shaw does a great job as the chillingly unlikable Mrs. Nugent. Another visionary piece of casting was putting Sinead O'Connor in the role of the Virgin Mary, the object of several of Francie's hallucinations -- I'm sure she had great fun with this.

The star of the show, however, is young Eamon Owens. I have seldom seen an actor so young dive into a role with such boundless enthusiasm -- be BECOMES Francie Brady. His energy makes his role explode off the screen, taking it right to the edge, but never so far over the top as to make it unbelievable. This is a first rate performance -- it'll be interesting to see where he turns up next.

Evidently Warner Brothers was unsure what to do with this film -- the garish poster art is one indication of that. A movie poster is, much of the time, the public's first and only impression of a film -- and looking at this aspect, how could the film come across at a glance but as a slash-and-gash shocker? Nothing could be further from the truth -- makes me wonder if the boys in marketing gave it more than a casual viewing before deciding on their tactics. There is violence here, to be sure, but this film has much more intelligence and depth going for it than the poster would have us believe.

I would love to see this released on DVD -- the possibilities for 'extra material' are wonderful: interviews with Jordan and McCabe, commentary by Jordan, etc. This is a film that warrants further exploration, and DVD would be a great media with which to do that.

I would go so far to say that I consider this film to be one of the undiscovered masterpieces of modern cinema -- I can't imagine any viewer coming away from it unaffected, though it is admittedly not for every taste.

The thing to do is to read Patrick McCabe's novel -- it's an unsettling experience as well, but one so rich that even reading it after seeing the film cannot lessen its effect.


Scarlet Billows in Francie's Bubble   September 20, 2000
 9 out of 10 found this review helpful

There has been a welcome trend in recent years of films that follow the first person narrative of their source novels. Seemingly free of conventional morality they provide the viewer with the resplendent and singular worldview of their often deranged protagonists. The standouts have been Danny Boyle's Trainspotting 1996 from Irvine Welsh's novel and Fight Club 1999 from Chuck Palahniuk's novel. I haven't read Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, but from the film's looney narration its easy to guess that the book was written in first person. In the hands of fellow Irishman Neil Jordan's suprisingly whimsical hands, the film is a hysterical tragedy if there ever was one.

The time is 1960s Ireland. And from the bizzare opening credits where Mack The Knife plays over the comic book images that so completely engulf the world of our young anti-hero, it is clear that this is not a clear eyed picture of Irish life, but Ireland according to Francis Brady (Eamonn Owens). He's quite a scallywag this lad, he marches through the town along side his best friend Joe Purcell as if they owned it. Surrounded by Irish religious hysteria and John Wayne movies the villains in their world are the detestably snobbish and English accented Mrs.Nugent(Fiona Shaw), Aleins and Communists(in that order). According to the adult Francie's franctic narration his Da Brady (Stephen Rea) is "the best musician in the world" and his Ma is certainly the kindest and most loving of mothers. It is indeed a wonderful life, or a wonderful fantasy.

It becomes depressingly clear that Francie's father is a violent alcoholic, his mother a depressed suicidal and most importantly that his friend Joe is embarrassed by him. We the audience are allowed to see what Francie has chosen to block out, he hides in his world of vivid fantasy under a violent exhuberance. As conditions get worse, as his real life crumbles he regresses further into his own world. His fantasies become more vivid, the four letter word spouting Virign Mary(Sinead O'Connor) makes a personal appearance, the insect like aliens invade and the atomic bomb is dropped over Ireland. It is a journey into madness as a protective mechanism, laced with wicked humour and embodied by Eamonn Owens in what is probably the best child performance I've ever seen.

It is to Jordan's great credit that he never steps outside Francie's world for a more even handed prespective. And the narration by the wonderful Stephen Rea as the older(never wiser) Francie is often howlingly funny, particularly when he conducts live conversations with his younger self. Take this lovely piece of his mind when he is trapped at reform school, and is concocting a more socially acceptable image:

"If anybody comes looking for that bad bastard Francie Brady, they won't find him. He will be too busy getting the Francie Brady Not A Bad Bastard Anymore diploma."

Or this charming tidbit as he watches rural farmers, who have come to town for some shopping, dance at a local saloon:

"Some people call it dancing, I call it wading through manure."

The laughs get fewer and further apart. Jordan is a great director but his refusal to acknowledge the tragedy of this kid is disconcerting. The alternative would have been a sappy Hollywood style disease of the week sacharrine snooze fest. I found myself wishing that Jordan would find a way to acknowledge the tragedy of this character without abandoning the first person narration. He doesn't. As a result the second half of the film has the same happy tunes on soundtrack while a child goes insane. It is rather cruel. In the first half I was laughing with Francis, in this second I would have been laughing at him.

Despite my complaints, I still think The Butcher Boy is a success. Its twisted world view is both its biggest problem and its greatest asset. It is an orginal, and for that alone it is worth seeing.

When you think of Francis Brady, and after you see the film you certainly will, think of the some of the original lyrics of the Music only version of Mack The Knife that plays over the opening credits:

"You know when that shark bites. With his teeth babe. Scarlet billows start to spread. Fancy gloves though, wears ol' MacHeath babe. So there's never, never a trace of red."

Francie's fantasies are his fancy gloves. Think about it.