Film: Savage
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 84 mins
Director: Brendan Muldowney
Starring: Darren Healy, Nora-Jane Noone, Ryan Andrews, Karl Argue, Marisa Armstrong
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Studio: High Fliers
Format: DVD
Country: Republic of Ireland
This is an English-language release.
Savage is fear, control and anger and savage is one man‘s pursuit of these. Savage are the streets of Ireland, but savage revenge is bloody sweet. One man, subject to all of these, is on a quest to rediscover identity and masculinity in this unconventional coming-of-age story.
Paul (Healy) is a comfortably settled bachelor, content with his photo-journalist career but concerned for his ill father. Work currently sees him join the media frenzy around the latest crime that has disturbed his city and he joins his fellow press minions at the honey pot of misfortune - in more ways than one.
When he convinces love-interest Michelle, his father’s nurse, to accompany him for a drink one Friday night, everything runs smoothly. Following a successful date, he walks across town on his way home, dodging the alcohol-fuelled hedonism and chaos of a typical inner-city night, allowing Muldowney and his cinematographers to extinguish any flame that viewers might hold for the Emerald Isles. Approached by two thugs, he is promptly dragged down the oft-used dark alley, where his knife-wielding assailants carry out their brutal wishes. When he suffers the indignity and torture of the trade-mark castration that has shocked Ireland, it is an ironic twist of fate that he has fallen victim to the infamous criminals funding his career.
From this point on, Savage essentially tracks his recovery and little more in terms of story. But so much does happen, for self-discovery is no walk in the park. Dictated by the four principles of fear, control, anger and revenge, Paul fights his way to masculinity without a scrap of sentimentality or pity. Plot is structured stage by stage according to each of the four phases that he experiences, each chapter illustrating its purpose completely…
Paul’s journey is in fact refreshingly realistic, almost factual in its presentation. It makes the hero human, but not romantically so. Muldowney doesn’t omit emotion; far from it, for what could be more harrowing for a man than to have his masculinity literally stripped from him? But the way in which such immense feelings are dealt with by the director and his cast is far removed from romanticism. Paul’s sexuality is not just stripped physically, but mentally as well, ¬and Muldowney shares his character’s psychological strain rather than that of the heart.
The transformation of Paul is mind-blowing. From a quirky and slightly aloof protagonist, he utterly loses all composure. Muldowney’s self-penned script provocatively betrays the depth of the photographer’s anxiety, both to the viewer and victim. Take a trip to the local shop, for example: utterly feminised, he has resorted to carrying an alarm, and, upon being startled by an old man, he is compelled to use it, much to the amusement of the teen gang lurking on the street. Outraged and humiliated by the mass of nerves that he has become, Paul’s consequent search for control is utterly understandable. But viewers are invited to ask how far is too far?
Savage, unsurprisingly, is a character-based film, and a single character at that. The responsibility placed on Healy is huge; he has an entire script to pull off, virtually appearing in every scene. Yet he never falters; he is consistently Paul, a powerfully convincing casualty of crime, a man simply trying to find his identity on a mission that could never really be that simple at all. It is impossible for viewers not to form a relationship with him, for the gifted Healy makes him such a believably empathetic character. Bringing authenticity to an already innovative script, it’s not just the extreme development of his role that Healy masters, but the little subtleties of expression, of instinct, that truly engages the audience.
Muldowney himself seems to altruistically fade into obscurity; which is not the same as failing at his job. Entirely to the contrary, his invisibility lends him an impressive omnipresence that makes itself known through the very seamlessness of his film. Savage is stylised, but not jarringly so; it is polished but not glossed. Astoundingly, this is just his second feature film, but the emerging director fulfils his duty so well that Savage could easily be the work of a much more experienced creator. Triumphantly overcoming the barrier between production and consumption, he lures audiences into his cinematic world, which isn’t so far from the real one; viewers will forget that they are watching a film, so absorbing and accessible is the final product.
Savage is a satisfying film that utilises all of the cast and crew’s capabilities without excluding the viewer. Little wonder that 2010 saw Healy and Muldowney go head to head at the Irish Film and Television Awards for Rising Star. Gritty setting, bursts of shocking violence and its head-over-heart slant makes Savage a creditable chick-flick for boys that girls can enjoy, too. RS
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