Mark Reviews Movies: THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | July 30, 2020

Douglas (a restrained Cosmo Jarvis, revealing depths later), nicknamed "the Arm," has only known violence as a profession. He was a boxer, with his claim to fame coming when he represented his county in a tournament—and his claim to infamy arriving when one of his opponents died in the ring with him. The Shadow of Violence sees Douglas in his new gig: working as an enforcer for a local crime family. After some brief narration explaining his past, we see him at work, pummeling a man in his home, while his wife wails in a neighboring home, for an offense he insists he didn't commit.

Screenwriter Joseph Murtagh and director Nick Rowland (making his feature debut) don't see Douglas as a bad man. He is, like his nickname, just a limb, loyal and necessary, of a corrupt body. He has known nothing else, has never had any other opportunities, and has become entrenched with the only people who were willing to give him a shot at anything. The film, which constantly and intentionally undermines any possibility of this story taking a routine path, is more in line with the concept of tragedy than anything else.

After beating Fannigan (Liam Carney), accused of molesting a teenaged member of the crime family, Douglas just resumes his life in a little Irish town as if nothing had happened. The business with the alleged bad man, whose guilt or innocence remains an open question (The girl isn't talking, which could be because of trauma or could be because she knows her family wouldn't listen, and Fannigan, who was drunk at the time, could be honest or lying—either intentionally or unknowingly), is finished, or so it would seem.

Douglas' boss is Dympna (Barry Keoghan), a young man in many ways—younger than his fellow head honchoes in the family, younger than Douglas, wanting attention and respect, prone to making rash decisions, etc. He took over this part of the operation after his father's death. His uncles Hector (David Wilmot), a business-minded opportunist, and Paudi (Ned Dennehy), a far rougher and more eye-for-eye kind of guy than his brothers, constantly question his methods, his choices, and, for that matter, his usefulness.

They don't like that Dympna, whose younger sister is Fannigan's possible victim, let such a criminal, such a traitor, and such a waste go with only a vicious beating. The uncles want the point made clear: You do not mess with, betray, or otherwise insult this family. If Dympna can't exact the punishment on his own, he has Douglas for that work anyway. The uncles suggest that the Arm is like a dog or some other animal—or just directly refer to him as such.

Douglas, quiet in manner and trapped in this, just lets them. In his mind, that's loyalty. In the opinion of Ursula (Niamh Algar), his ex and the mother of his developmentally different son Jack (Kiljan Tyr Moroney), that's more in line with servitude.

Evading the usual trappings of a crime drama or action story, Murtagh's screenplay instead looks at Douglas' situation as a story of dual and dueling family dynamics. There's the family that took him in when he was low and unwanted, which he sees as a reason for loyalty, instead of what it really is—taking advantage of the perfect kind of person to manipulate into doing whatever the crime family wants.

Then, there's the family he chose—Ursula and Jack—but has neglected, because Ursula can see through the other family's dysfunction and doesn't like the man Douglas has become with them. Douglas wants to take care of this family of his, but that's only possible if he keeps working for the other family. Meanwhile, Ursula, who applied for a job in the relatively faraway Cork, has other plans to support her family—with or without Douglas.

The plot, obviously, has Douglas forced to decide what to do when Dympna, making sure to fill the nostrils of his "friend" with hit after hit of cocaine, orders him to kill Fannigan. Douglas' ultimate confrontation with the accused and condemned man is a particularly effective scene, as Fannigan realizes the inevitability of his imminent death and Douglas tries to convince himself to become the kind of person to make that happen.

There's desperation in both men, of course, but there's also a sense of how pathetic they have become, entangled in this mess. That's not something we quite expect from a story such as this, in which our villains are often patently villainous and our anti-heroes are labeled as such because they're morally conflicted. These characters, though, are routinely seen as pitiful. Paudi is a withered man, insulting and threatening others with drool dripping from his mouth. Hector has latched on to a lonely widow to secure his own future. At a bar, Dympna takes a pair of men's laughter as a chuckle at his expense but beats someone else instead.

As for Douglas, he can't communicate with his own son, eventually yelling at him at a fair. He can't express his feelings to Ursula. He clearly wants this life with this family, but the only way he knows how to live is the thing that's preventing that from happening.

It is, indeed, tragic, as well as pathetic. In addition to this mournful tone and these wise observations, The Shadow of Violence also avoids any sort of formulaic action or resolution. For example, a car chase ends almost as quickly as it begins, and the filmmakers arrive at a most unexpected but potent climax. It's not a standoff or a shootout but, of all things, a tender phone call.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)