Six Shooter

So we've decided to branch out into the world of Short films.  Is this because we're lazy and short films are, well, short?  Probably.  But more because alot of these are brilliant little stories that do more in about twenty minutes than most major blockbusters can do in two hours.  And also some major directors got their starts doing short films.  So it's a chance to see where they came from, where they learned to hone their craft.  Seeing what they were while knowing what they become.  So without further ado, I bring you:

Funny how things work out; we just review In Bruges and now I'm doing a write up for Martin McDonagh's first foray into film.  Staring Brendan Gleeson, the film follows Donnelly from the hospital where he learns his wife has passed away back to his home.  But if that's all that happened, it would be a ridiculous short film and you and I would have to wonder how it won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.  But luckily, between the hospital and home, Donnelly finds himself on a train, talking and interacting with various people on board.  A distraught husband and wife, an off-kilter teenager, a mouthy concession worker, and a cop or two.  And this is where the film shines, in the characterizations of all of the people.  They're engaging and real, all trying to cope with one thing or another.  But instead of things going as simply as just talking about feelings, the teenager, who uses swears like buffers for words, speaks without a filter on his thoughts and works his way into everyone's issues.  It's an incredibly emotional train, and this kid wants to just figure out the root of the issue, and keep poking it.  But he never comes off as malicious, just incapable of seeing what he's doing.  He's just being himself.  And we watch and listen to them, engaged from the first word to the last.

Now this is Martin McDonagh we're talking about.  We'll I'm talking about, but fuck it, that sounded better.  So things are both depressing but funny.  It's a humor that comes from sadness; that sometimes we need to laugh to shake off the pain.  And there is a part with a cow and some explosions.  Now if that didn't grab your attention, then check that pulse, cause I think you're dead.  But it's not out of the blue; they're not passing a field were some cow has had it up to here and gone all Rambo on things.  It flows well with the story, and creates some new ways to look at a character.  But also being McDonagh , things get violent.  Bloody violent.  Which just goes to show how good of a writer and director McDonagh is that he can do so much and create so much character in so little time.  But a final warning, this is not a happy film.  McDonagh likes to show you how dark human life can be, and here he is letting us see how a day can go from bad to worse, though humor and blood.

And if you're thinking, "Jeez, that's a pretty long review for a short film", you'd be right.  But that's kind of the beauty of this movie, and short films in general.  The good ones have so much condensed in under 30 minutes that you can find so much to talk about.  Find so much the filmmaker wanted to bring to light.  And Six Shooter has that; the humor, the violence, the engaging characters and a storyline that shows us how how dark a day can really get.  So go watch it.  Do it.