THE BUTCHER BOY (Warner Bros.) Starring: Stephen Rea, Eamonn Owens, Fiona Shaw, Alan Boyle, Aisling O'Sullivan. Screenplay: Neil Jordan and Patrick McCabe, based on the novel by McCabe. Producers: Redmond Morris and Stephen Woolley. Director: Neil Jordan. MPAA Rating: R (violence, profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 108 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Everything I needed to know about the themes of THE BUTCHER BOY, it turns out, I learned from the opening titles sequence. The film's credits are superimposed over comic book panels featuring scenes of angry faces and destruction, the last of which fades into the story of a troubled Irish teenager named Francie Brady (newcomer Eamonn Owens) circa 1961 - 1962. It soon becomes clear that Francie is nobody's idea of a perfect little boy, stealing apples and terrorizing more timid boys as his whim moves him. It also becomes clear that he comes from a dysfunctional home, his emotionally unstable mother (Aisling O'Sullivan) spending almost as much time in institutions as his drunken father (Stephen Rea) spends in pubs.
But it's not just family strife which eventually turns Francie into a monster. Every possible external influence sends Francie retreating into a fantasy world of fear, paranoia and violence, particularly the pernicious influence of the media. Radio broadcasts of Cold War rhetoric from President Kennedy create a general feeling that nuclear war is imminent; television programs depict The Lone Ranger firing his gun and The Fugitive seeking the elusive one-armed man; the era's popular mutant horror movies fill theater screens; and, of course, the comic books splashed over the opening credits feed boys still more violent images. Even a priest at a Catholic reform school (Milo O'Shea) is a potential threat as a fetishist and pedophile. Is it any wonder Francie comes to fixate on a single woman (Fiona Shaw) as the cause of all his troubles? It is an era of scape-goating and fear-mongering, with poor young Francie simply a product of his environment.
There is a perverse fascination to watching Francie grow progressively more demented, but eventually it becomes clear that there's not much more to THE BUTCHER BOY than that. It's tough to work up much sympathy for Francie when he's treated by co-writer and director Neil Jordan like a lab rat in a grand sociological experiment -- how much hate and violence can one boy absorb until he snaps? It can't help that the lead character is an unstable boy played by an inexperienced young actor. Though Owens has a few very effective moments, including worrying over the lost affections of his one and only friend (Alan Boyle), he spends most of the film mugging, yelling and gesticulating wildly. For a story on a serious subject, it's not always easy to take THE BUTCHER BOY seriously.
Then again, it's pretty clear that Jordan isn't interested in having us take it seriously. THE BUTCHER BOY is a truly odd black-humored concoction which treats Francie's many traumas with more whimsy than consternation. Virtually every moment is given a comic spin of some sort: the simple comment of a townswoman that "it'll be a bitter day for this town if the world comes to an end;" Frankie's conversations with a decidedly earthy Virgin Mary (Sinead O'Connor); even electro-shock treatments in "The Garage" (Francie's term for mental hospital, because that's where you go when you break down). Jordan's approach is consistently surprising, taking even a tired device like omnipresent voice-over narration (also provided by Rea as the adult Francie) and turning it into a bizarre duet between past and present. With Elliot Goldenthal providing a jaunty underscore to everything from youthful play to the discovery of a murder scene, THE BUTCHER BOY remains strangely amusing enough to keep you watching.
That, unfortunately, is about as far as Jordan goes. As a comedy, it's a fairly original collection of sick chuckles. As a drama, it offers pat answers and too little insight, putting us through episodic paces without offering more to learn about its main character than we learned from the first 90 seconds or so: keep your boys away from television and comic books unless you want them going crazy on you.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 butcher chops: 6.
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