La prime

Perrier's Bounty is a quirky dark Irish crime comedy but it is also a misfire as you get a feeling of having seen it all before. It wants to be In Bruges, it even has Brendan Gleeson in it but is nowhere as good.

Cillian Murphy plays a young waster Michael McCrea who is in debt of 1000 Euros to loan shark Perrier (Brendan Gleeson.) Michael's dying dad (Jim Broadbent) turns up to make his life awkward and his dizzy, suicidal in the neighbouring flat (Jodie Whittaker) accidentally kills one of Perrier's debt collectors.

Now they all find themselves on the run from Perrier but maybe some other goons with vicious dogs might inadvertently come to Michael's rescue.

Despite the wacky set up the characters are rather two dimensional even with the added eccentricities they are given.

Rented this on a recommendation from the video store owner, who like myself, is into just about every genre. We certainly don't shy away from foreign films, and this gangster/father-son story looked to be right up my alley.

Like I mentioned in the title - there is quite a bit of humor here that can be hard to pick up because of its' dry nature, and because of the thick accents. It can really make the difference between this being a completely average film, and this being a truly enjoyable, albeit lesser-known, humorous, and darkly adventurous tale.

The cast is strong and the story moves at a brisk pace. It's in the storyline vein of Tarantino or Ritchie, but lacks a bit of the panache of those directors' work.

Perrier's Bounty has good performances throughout, and there is little doubt that those fans of the afore mentioned directors will find this to be an exciting film. It's rated R for brief nudity, drug use, and violence.

The only stand-out negative would be the music. The music selections were great, but the volume of the music was WAY too loud compared to the dialog and the rest of the movie. Maybe the music director was a bit too proud of his/her selections. I had to turn the TV down every time a song came on, and then turn it back up when the dialog resumed. The only other negative would be a slightly rushed and under-developed love story that could have really put this over-the-top.

Recommended. THose who liked pulp fiction and lock stock will find this to be a good(not great) film along the same lines. LIsten carefully as many of the hilarious lines can pass you by. The strongest characteristic of this film is the relationship between Cillian Murphy and the actor(who's name escapes me as I'm writing this) who plays Cillian's father. Also, having two fantastic actors playing in the two lead Gangster roles helps immensely.

71/100

You'll like it if you liked: Layer Cake, State of Grace, or Harry Brown.

Perrier's Bounty is an average, enjoyable comedy thriller. It features a terrific cast, including Cillian Murphy, Jodie Whittaker and Brendan Gleeson, all of whom are decent in their respective roles. Unfortunately, the weak link of the cast is Jim Broadbent, who delivers an excruciatingly bad Irish accent, which almost sounds like a parody. Composer David Holmes produces another entertaining and exciting score for this movie.

While it is fun, this film is pretty unremarkable. Although the characters are enjoyable to watch, mainly due to the actors inhabiting them, there is nothing particularly captivating about them, nor the movie as a whole. What keeps this movie relatively engaging is the excellent supporting cast of wonderful Irish actors that weave in and out of the story, such as Domhnall Gleeson, Liam Cunningham and Conleth Hill.

Apart from a very strong cast, this also has some very fine moments throughout. Like a french phrase that gets repeated. Offbeat things like that make this movie stand out from some other movies who try hard to be distinguishable. But in the end, there are quite a few things, that don't quite work in it's favor.

While the story as it is, is told pretty fast (so that you can't think too much about some logical errors/plot holes I guess), sometimes you'd want some time for the characters to breathe. Especially the things the female lead goes through in a short amount of time, are very improbable, not to mention her emotional journey, which is just a bit too rushed. Still lovable, but with an ending, that though planted, feels a bit off in a wrong way.

For this particular genre of movies, then "Perrier's Bounty" failed to make a lasting impression, nor did it leave any significant impact. The story never really made it out of the parking lot, so to speak. The story, despite trying hard, never turned out to be more than mediocre.

The movie does have an impressive list of actors and actresses on the cast list, but despite this fact, that wasn't enough to pull off the story in a manner that would turn out to be outstanding.

The story is about Michael McCrea who owes money to Perrier. Michael is given a short amount of time to make payment due, otherwise Perrier's goons will set out to collect the debt one way or another. A frantic night turns worse when Michael ends up on the run with his suicidal neighbor and his dying father.

Storywise, then there were moments throughout the movie that were great and there were some good ideas to the script as well. However, the overall impression of the movie was fairly mediocre, and there is sort of an irrelevant vibe to the movie, which was a shame.

"Perrier's Bounty" is great for a single watching, but the movie is nowhere near anything that would support multiple viewings of the movie. The storyline just doesn't have what it takes.