REVIEW: Jim Broadbent, Cillian Murphy Anchor Eccentric Perrier's Bounty

Loose, flinty, and a little in love with itself, Perrier's Bounty struts the fine line of self-consciousness drawn by neo-gangster capers like The Usual Suspects, In Bruges and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It's still a relatively new -- and presumably malleable -- design, but director Ian Fitzgibbon seems comfortable within its broad strokes: Chronic f*ck-up angers casually vicious, slightly absurd kingpin; bon mots and a body count ensue. Not designed to blend in (can a film in an eccentric mold achieve true eccentricity?) and yet lacking the extra inch to distinguish it from its better-known kin, Perrier's Bounty is content to merely measure up.

The element that comes closest to setting the film apart is its snappy, highly idiomatic script. Writer Mark O'Rowe (Boy A), a playwright by trade, clearly reveled in creating a mouthy bunch of mooks: he populates the film with Dublin toughs (whose accents are so thick they're often impenetrable) as likely to call out "insouciance" as they are to swear a blue streak. O'Rowe was also unable to resist the lure of an omniscient narrator, and while I'd listen to Gabriel Byrne break down the subtleties of my tax return, his function becomes increasingly dubious as the film progresses. By the time he issues his fifth warning about the "brutal and tragic events" that are "brewin' up righteous," Byrne is one more among O'Rowe's aggressive stylistic flourishes that doesn't quite pan out.

Byrne introduces us to a passed-out Michael (Cillian Murphy) with a derisive purr: Here lies a slaggish young man about to enter a world of pain. Indeed, a couple of thugs have been set on him to pay up the thousand dollars he owes to a local loan shark named Perrier (Brendan Gleeson). Dogged around town and unable to come up with the dough, Michael soon finds himself on the lam with both his neighbor Brenda (Jodie Whittaker) and his estranged father (Jim Broadbent) in tow. The former, the object of Michael's unrequited affection, turns the gun she had intended for suicide onto one of his pursuers and becomes a wanted woman herself; the latter has been frightened -- by a nocturnal visit from the Grim Reaper -- into making amends with his deadbeat son. It's a proudly wacky set-up and it works: As the daffy dad with nothing to lose, Broadbent is an especial treat, whether having a lascivious, speculative laugh over why Brenda's so attached to her rotter of a boyfriend, descending into a sleepless psychosis (he's afraid his next nap will be his last), or making demands (for cocaine, among other things) that he wants met "tout f*cking suite."

Murphy, who has applied his slightly alien aspect to almost every end (transvestite, villain, supervillain, folk hero) but a plainly human one, is cast against type as a right slacker hiding under a hoodie and some cheek scruff. His central role is also the least showy, a foil for quirky personalities and brutal outbursts surrounding him. Though he can never do less than hold the screen, here Murphy's inherent melancholy -- while a good match for a film as dour and drizzly-looking as this one -- absorbs more energy than it reflects. We root for him because we know we're supposed to and not -- despite this pleasantly laconic caper's best efforts -- because we come to give a damn.