Amongst the Wolves review: This Irish drug dealer is in debt to a villain played by Aidan Gillen. That never bodes well

Irish Times

30-04-2025

Amongst the Wolves
    
Director
:
Mark O'Connor
Cert
:
16
Starring
:
Luke McQuillan, Aidan Gillen, Daniel Fee, Helen Behan, Louise Bourke, Jade Jordan
Running Time
:
1 hr 42 mins
You blink and Mark O'Connor becomes something like a veteran. All right, it's still only 14 years since the Dubliner introduced Barry Keoghan to the world with the raw
Between the Canals
. But with films such as
King of the Travellers
and
Cardboard Gangsters
, he was ever there to remind us of the rawer Ireland that resisted post-tiger gentrification.
Before Amongst the Wolves resolves itself into a familiar genre (I was much reminded of a particular British film from the noughties), we get a grim survey of stubborn urban discontents.
Luke McQuillan, who wrote the screenplay with O'Connor, plays Danny, a veteran of the Afghan wars living uncomfortably in a tent by the canal. Estranged from his wife, struggling for access to his son, he is just about getting by when he encounters a rootless teenager named Will (Daniel Fee).
Now dealing drugs to stay aloft, the lad has found himself in the unfortunate position of being in debt to a character played by no less worrying an actor than Aidan Gillen. That never bodes well.
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Well researched and authentic in its language, Amongst the Wolves does a good job of fleshing out the challenges of the homeless life in a fiercely unequal society. O'Connor engages with narcotics from several rungs on the social ladder.
Shot in oily light by Ignas Laugalis, the film locates occasional spasms of unlikely beauty in the khaki water that flows through an often unfriendly city. There is a sense, perhaps, of too much being packed into too small a space – a 19th century state-of-the-nation novel retooled as indie thriller – but the committed cast make it live.
For all that, Amongst the Wolves feels most comfortable when in touch with the spit, blood and viscera that characterised O'Connor's earlier joints. It hardly needs to be said that Gillen gets his incisors deep into a ruthless villain of the old school. He doesn't exactly get to kill a baby, but he gets to do the next worst thing for a movie hoodlum.
McQuillan, making the most of a breakthrough lead, manages the shift from quiet desperation to quieter determination with impressive fluidity.
The ending is sufficiently convincing that it proves easy enough to forgive earlier clunks and creaks. An earthy reminder of easily ignored realities. A tribute to the independent spirit.
In cinemas from Friday, May 2nd