Review by Eric Hillis

Writer/director John Michael McDonagh is known for a particularly ugly brand of misanthropy. In his previous films – the Irish set duo of The Guard and Calvary, and his truly obnoxious US debut War on Everyone – he appears to set out to attack authority figures like the police and the church, but ends up punching down, his movies filled with crude homophobic, racist and ableist gags. When I heard the premise of his latest, The…

Review by Eric Hillis

Stories of estranged family members renewing their bonds have been a cliché in American indie cinema for the last couple of decades, stretching back to Kenneth Lonergan's debut You Can Count on Me. You'll find a few of these narratives padding practically every film festival, and they can often tend to blur together. What generally distinguishes such films are the performances, and you can see why actors are attracted to such stories that allow them to…