Cowboys & Angels

It's rare to come across exceptionally well done movies like this one that manage to stay hidden for years? Cowboys is a genuine rare gem.

This cleverly written Irish drama is highly entertaining and realistic. But it's tilted just a few degrees off axis making it fresh and unpredictable. This is familiar subject matter given a genuine makeover with a few Irish twists. It's the sort of film that makes wading through all the junk at film festivals worthwhile.

On a more technical level, it never feels particularly low budget. The lead actors do a very credible job. The cinematography is honest and the sound, in particular, is way above average for this genre. There are a few stray threads hanging off the seams here and there, but the story and main characters are easily captivating enough to keep your attention elsewhere.

Others obviously consider this a gay themed movie but I don't agree. There's no gay romance and only a brief moments or hints of gay intimacy. There might be a tiny element of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" here, but it's just one of many small subplots. It's much more a coming of age movie--and, as such, it clearly excels.

Although it sounds like the premise for a formulaic sitcom, Cowboys and Angels turns out to be something entirely different. This big-hearted crowd pleaser, written and directed by David Gleeson, centers on Shane (Michael Legge), a lonely 20-year-old misfit who moves to the big city and takes on a gay roommate, fashion-design student Victor (Allen Leech).

After some queer-eye advice from the popular, outgoing Victor (new haircut, new wardrobe, new attitude), Shane begins to emerge from his shell. But an incidental friendship with the drug dealer who lives downstairs threatens to wreck his life just as it is beginning to come together.

Refreshingly, Cowboys and Angels uses its characters as people, not types, on its way to detailing Shane's gradual coming-of-age. Even with its brief running time, the movie feels slight and padded: The story technically ends 10 minutes before the movie does. But the lack of the expected gay-straight clichés puts you in a forgiving mood, and Gleeson's upbeat, humanist approach takes care of the rest.

Now here's the right way to do a drama/comedy involving Ireland's drug scene. (Makers of Headrush, take note!) Shane is so young and fresh-faced that we instinctively want to take him on our lap and give him a big hug--even though he's 20. His mother gives him a religious medallion and frets as he moves into a flat in the middle of Limerick. And she's right to. Shane is a lost soul looking for something and/or someone to belong to. His flatmate Vincent, on the other hand, is très cool and seems to have everything under control. We think we know where things are heading, but not everything happens quite exactly the way we expect. Being a movie, things move in a clear arc and do end very tidily, but still this film gets at some real truths about what life is like for young Irish men these days. What seems strange for an Irish movie is its sense of optimism and its celebration of people finding themselves. Shane is played by Michael Legge, whose previous experience playing a Limerick character was as one of three actors to play the young Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. Here he makes a very convincing transformation from insecure youth to newly found self-confidence. Allen Leech is likewise convincing as Vincent, who does a queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy number on Shane. Also on hand are David Murray, playing a more menacing version of his character in Flick, and Frank Kelly, managing to erase his "Father Jack" image as Shane's co-worker who symbolizes the dead end of a safe path through life.

Two Irish lads move in together. Vincent is a well-balanced gay art student and Shane is a sheltered and shy civil servant. Through a makeover a la "Queer Eye," Vincent helps Shane gain self-confidence. Unfortunately, Shane falls into the wrong crowd and starts trafficking drugs.

Is this a makeover movie (complete with themes about being true to yourself) or a movie about the Irish drug scene? It tries to be both, but it never finds a good balance. It ultimately strives to be about the relationship between the two young men, but it never really succeeds because the relationship is never fully developed for the viewer. This problem could have been easily avoided--two very endearing deleted scenes should have been kept in the film for sure. There are some random scenes that seem to come out of nowhere, but it all pieces together nicely (perhaps too nicely) in the end. The lead character does some awful things, like being part of a hit and run where a woman is terribly injured and a man is severely beaten when trying to call the cops, but in the end it is all okay because he's a likable guy with a fabulous gay roommate who has unexpectedly got the hook-up. Oh, please. Still, the overall theme of being yourself and true to yourself is great, even if the movie goes about expressing it in a half-assed way. And both lead actors are irresistibly cute.

This breezy comedy-drama marks an assured feature film debut for David Gleeson, who traces his interest in film back to his childhood in the Co. Limerick village of Cappamore, where his father ran the local cinema. Set in present-day Limerick City, his film stars Michael Legge, who played the teenaged Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes, but it offers a very different view of the city to the rain-sodden misery of McCourt's early life - and to its Stab City image as the alternative murder capital of Ireland.

The emphasis of this warm, engaging movie is on the friendship that develops between two young men who agree to share an apartment for economic reasons. Shane (Legge) is a shy with girls and already bored with his job as a civil servant, and Vincent (Allan Leech) is a flamboyantly dressed, openly gay fashion design student. Shane's journey of self-discovery is charted with wit and insight in Gleeson's sweet-natured movie, which neatly resolves the potentially awkward moral dilemmas it raises. There is an appealingly natural chemistry between the charming lead actors, and a touching portrayal of a disillusioned older civil servant by Frank Kelly.