Perrier's Bounty (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

Ireland/UK

Feature Film

Director: Ian Fitzgibbon

Writer: Mark O'Rowe

Cinematographer: Seamus Deasy

Composer: David Holmes

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Jodie Whittaker, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, Michael McElhatton, Don Wycherley, Liam Cunningham, Brendan Coyle, Padraic Delaney, Conleth Hill, Gabriel Byrne

Having missed the deadline to repay the €1,000 that he owes to a vicious local gangster, Michael, chased down by two of his thugs, prepares to say goodbye to his legs, but his suicidal neighbour, about to shoot herself, instead comes to his rescue by turning the gun onto them – cue the eponymous reward for their capture – and so they set out on the run, accompanied by Michael’s sleep-deprived father (who may or may not be about to die), in Fitzgibbon’s well crafted and acted though rather familiar black comedy. Iain.Stott

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32A (2007)

Not Recommended

Ireland/Germany/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Marian Quinn

Cinematographer: P.J. Dillon

Composer: Gerry Leonard

Cast: Ailish McCarthy, Sophie Jo Wasson, Orla Long, Riona Smith, Shane McDaid, Aidan Quinn, Orla Brady, Jared Harris

A 13-year-old girl with a minor obsession for bra sizes abandons her three closest friends when she starts dating a much older boy, a mistake she is soon forced to deal with, in this gentle and likable yet never entirely convincing coming-of-age tale, which features performances of mixed quality from its young cast. Iain.Stott

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When Harvey Met Bob (2010)

Recommended

UK/Ireland

Television Film

Director: Nicholas Renton

Writer: Joe Dunlop

Cinematographer: Owen McPolin

Composers: Hugh Drumm, Stephen Rennicks

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Ian Hart, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Paul Rhys, Padraic Delaney, Chris Dunlop, Andrew Whipp

Though some of the directorial flourishes jar a little, and the script’s failure to mention a number of key figures is somewhat bizarre, this British-Irish co-production, a fictionalised depiction of Bob Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith’s momentous achievement in organising the 1985 Live Aid concert, which was put on in order to raise money for the starving millions in Ethiopia, proves to be, thanks in the main to the outstanding perfomance of Gleeson as the hirsute Dublin rocker Geldof, a thoroughly compelling and surprisingly very affecting film. Iain.Stott

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