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The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Amongst the Wolves review – drills and chills in Irish gangster thriller
Irish director Mark O'Connor's film is a two-for-one deal. It starts out as a serious well-researched drama about an army veteran with PTSD sleeping rough in Dublin, and ends in bloody revenge, with Aidan Gillen in ultraviolent mode and gangsters drilling holes into each other's kneecaps. The movie is grounded by a rock solid performance from the film's co-writer Luke McQuillan as former soldier Danny, who loses his family and home after a tour in Afghanistan. There's a scene early on that feels horribly truthful about the day-to-day reality of being homeless: late one night, three lagered up youths humiliate Danny for a laugh – forcing him in front of the camera as they shove a coin into his hand. The shame on his face as they film him is harder to watch than the electric drills later that come later. Flashbacks show us how Danny's family life fell apart. There was an accident involving his little boy when Danny was looking after him; so when he meets a teenager called Will (Daniel Fee) sleeping in woods, Danny's instinct is to protect him – a second chance to get it right, perhaps. There is nothing particularly new about this story, but McQuillan plays Danny with real care. Here's where Gillen muscles in as a gang boss called Power, a man who takes a spider's pleasure in getting people exactly where he wants them. Teenager Will was dealing drugs for Power, until his mum flushed his stash down the loo. Now he's in trouble. Gillen plays Power with his trademark soft-spoken menace, but somehow it doesn't stick here, even with the added nastiness of his character having a sadistic habit of killing dogs. At times this is a film that doesn't feel like quite enough, at others it's a little bit too much. Amongst the Wolves is on digital platforms from 2 June.
Irish Times
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Amongst the Wolves review: This Irish drug dealer is in debt to a villain played by Aidan Gillen. That never bodes well
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. READ MORE 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
